The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 345

PEPSIN, an essential const.i.tuent of the gastric juice extracted from the stomach of the calf, sheep, and pig, and used in medicine to supply any defect of it in the stomach of a patient.

PEPYS, SAMUEL, author of a famous Diary, a scholarly man and respected as connected with different grades of society; held a clerks.h.i.+p in the Admiralty, and finally the secretarys.h.i.+p; kept a diary of events from 1660 to 1669, which remained in MS. till 1826, when it was published in part by Lord Braybrooke, and is of interest for the insight it gives into the manners of the time and the character of the author; the latest and completest edition of this Diary is that of H. B. Wheatley, published in 1893-96, in eight vols. (1633-1703).

PERA, a suburb of Constantinople, on the N. side of the Golden Horn, and the foreign diplomatic quarter.

PERaeA, "the country beyond," designated that part of Palestine beyond or E. of the Jordan.

PERCEVAL, a hero of the legends of chivalry, famed for his adventures in quest of the Holy Graal.

PERCEVAL, SPENCER, English statesman, born in London, son of the Earl of Egmont; bred to the bar; entered Parliament as a supporter of Pitt, and held a succession of posts under different administrations, attaining the Premiers.h.i.+p, which he held from 1800 to 1812, on the 11th of May, of which year he was shot dead by a madman of the name of Bellingham in the lobby of the House; he was devoted to the throne, and a man of upright character but narrow sympathies (1762-1812).

PERCIVAL, JAMES GATES, American poet and geologist, born at Kensington, Connecticut; took his degree at Yale in 1815, and qualified as a medical pract.i.tioner; he was for a few months professor of Chemistry at West Point, but retired and gave himself to literature and geology; his scientific works are valuable; "Prometheus and Clio" appeared in 1822, "Dream of a Day" in 1843; he died at Hazel Green, Wisconsin (1795-1856).

PERCY, a n.o.ble English family of Norman origin, the founder of which accompanied the Conqueror, and was rewarded with grants of land for his services; a successor of whom in the female line, Henry, the father of the famous Hotspur, was created Duke of Northumberland in 1377.

PERCY, THOMAS, English prelate and antiquary, born at Bridgenorth, Shrops.h.i.+re, the son of a grocer; devoted himself to the collection of old ballads, and published in 1765 "Reliques of Ancient English Poetry"; he published also ballads of his own, among them "The Hermit of Warkworth,"

and was the author of "O Nannie, wilt thou gang wi' me?" he a.s.sociated with Johnson, Burke, and other notables of the period, and was a member of Dr. Johnson's Literary Club; became bishop of Dromore in 1782, where he was held in affectionate regard; was blind for some years before he died (1729-1811).

PERDICCAS, a favourite general of Alexander the Great, who, when on his deathbed, took his signet ring off his finger and gave it to him; he became an object of distrust after Alexander's death, and was a.s.sa.s.sinated in Egypt.

PEREIRA, JONATHAN, pharmacologist, born in London; author of the "Elements of Materia Medica," a standard work; was examiner on the subject in London University (1804-1853).

PEREKOP, ISTHMUS OF, connects the Crimea with the S. of Russia; is pierced by a s.h.i.+p-ca.n.a.l.

PEREZ, ANTONIO, Spanish statesman, and minister of Philippe II., born in Aragon; was the tool of the king in the murder of Escoveda, the confidant of John of Austria; was convicted of betraying State secrets and imprisoned, but escaped; being in possession of royal secrets, which he published, Philippe tried every means to arrest him, but Perez evaded capture, and found refuge in France, where he died in poverty (1539-1611).

PERFECTIONISM, the doctrine that moral perfection is by divine grace attainable in the present life.

PERFECTIONISTS, an American sect or society founded by John Humphrey Noyes in 1848 at Oneida, New York State, on Communistic principles, but owning no law save that of the Spirit, and subject to no criticism but the judgment they freely pa.s.sed on one another, a system which they were obliged to modify in 1880 so far as to recognise the rights of matrimony and the family, and to adopt the principle of a joint-stock limited liability company, on which lines the community is proving a prosperous one.

PERGAMOS, the citadel of Troy, a name frequently given by the poets to the city itself.

PERGAMOS, an ancient city of Mysia, in Asia Minor; founded by a colony of Greek emigrants in 3rd century B.C., and eventually the centre of a province of the name, which was subject for a time to Macedonia, but threw off the yoke and became independent, till it became a Roman province by bequest on the part of Attalus III. in 133 B.C. The city possessed a library second only to that of Alexandria, contained one of the seven churches mentioned in the Revelation, and gave its name to parchment, alleged to have been invented there.

PERI, in the Eastern mythology a fairy being of surpa.s.sing beauty, begotten of fallen spirits, and excluded from Paradise, but represented as leading a life of pleasure and endowed with immortality; there were male Peris as well as female, and they were intermediate between angels and demons.

PERIANDER, the tyrant of Corinth from 625 to 585 B.C., was one of the seven sages of Greece, and a patron of literature and the arts; Arion and Anacharsis lived at his Court.

PERICLES, the great Athenian statesman, born in Athens, of n.o.ble parentage; was a devoted disciple of Anaxagoras; entered public life 467 B.C. as a democrat, and soon became head of the democratic party, to the increase of the power of the citizens and annihilation of the domination of the oligarchy centred in the Areopagus; hostile to territorial aggrandis.e.m.e.nt, he sought, as his chief ambition, the unification of Greece in one grand confederacy, but was defeated in this n.o.ble aim by the jealousy of Sparta; he put down all rivalry, however, in Athens itself, and established himself as absolute ruler with the consent of the citizens, reforming the laws, adorning the city, and encouraging literature and the arts, masters, many wise in the one and skilful in the other, he had at his disposal, such as few or none of the cities of the world had ever before or have had since; the resulting prosperity did but enhance the envy of the other States, Sparta in particular, and two years before he died the spirit of hostility took shape in the outbreak of the PELOPONNESIAN WAR (q. v.); he had surrounded the city with walls, and his policy was to defend it from within them rather than face the enemy in the field, but it proved fatal, for it tended to damp rather than quicken the ardour of the citizens, and to add to this a plague broke out among them in 430 B.C., which cut down the most valiant of their number, and he himself lay down to die the year after; he was a high-souled, n.o.bly-bred man, great in all he thought and did, and he gathered around him nearly all the n.o.ble-minded and n.o.ble-hearted men of his time to adorn his reign and make Athens the envy of the world; _d_.

429 B.C.

PeRIER, CASIMIR, a French banker and politician, born at Gren.o.ble; took part in the Revolution of 1830, became Minister of the Interior in 1831; suppressed the insurrections at Paris and Lyons; died of cholera (1777-1832).

PERIGEE, the point in the orbit of the moon or a planet nearest the earth.

PeRIGORD, an ancient territory of France, S. of Guienne, famous for its truffles, of which PeRIGUEUX (q. v.) was the capital; united to the Crown of France by Henry IV. in 1589, it is now part of the department of Dordogne and part of Lot-et-Garonne.

PeRIGUEUX (31), chief town of the department of Dordogne, France, on the Isle, 95 m. by rail NE. of Bordeaux, is a narrow irregular town with a cathedral after St. Mark's in Venice, museum of antiquities, and library; iron and woollens are the industries; truffles and truffle pies are exported.

PERIHELION, the point on the orbit of a planet or comet nearest the sun.

PERIM, a small barren, crescent-shaped island at the mouth of the Red Sea, belonging to Britain, and used as a coaling-station.

PERIPATETIC PHILOSOPHY, the name given to the philosophy of Aristotle, from his habit of walking about with his disciples as he philosophised in the shady walks of the Lyceum.

PERNAMBUCO (130), a seaport in N. Brazil, consists of three portions connected by bridges: Recife, on a peninsula, the business quarter; San Antonio, the modern quarter, on an intermediate island; and Bon Vista, on the mainland; manufactures cotton and tobacco, and has s.h.i.+pbuilding yards; the trade chiefly with England, the United States, and France; it is the capital of a province (1,100) of the name, producing sugar and cotton.

PERONELLA, in fairy legend a pretty country la.s.s who exchanges places with an old wizened queen, and receives the homage due to royalty, but gladly takes back her rags and beauty.

PEROWNE, STEWART, Bishop of Worcester, born at Burdwan, of Huguenot extraction, educated at Cambridge; became a Fellow of Corpus Christi; held several academic and ecclesiastical appointments; an eminent Hebrew scholar and exegete; his chief work a commentary on the Psalms; _b_.

1823.

PERPIGNAN (28), a town on the Tet, 7 m. from the sea; a fortress in the French department of Pyrenees-Orientales; has a cathedral of the 14th century and a bourse in Moorish-Gothic, and manufactures wine and brandy; belonged originally to Aragon; was taken by France in 1475, and retaken, after restoration to Spain, in 1642, since which time it has belonged to France.

PERRAULT, CHARLES, French man of letters, born in Paris; bred to the bar; distinguished as the author of inimitable fairy tales, which have immortalised his name, as "Puss in Boots," "Cinderella," "Bluebeard,"

&c., as also "Parallel des Anciens et des Modernes," in which his aim was to show--an ill-informed attempt--that the ancients were inferior in everything to the moderns (1628-1703).