The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 354

PLENIST, name given to one who holds the doctrine that all s.p.a.ce is filled with matter.

PLESIOSAURUS, an extinct marine animal with a small head and a long neck.

PLEURA, the serous membrane that lines the interior of the thorax and invests the lungs.

PLEURA-PNEUMONIA, an inflammation of the lungs and pleura, Pleurisy being the inflammation of the pleura alone.

PLEVNA (14), a fortified town in Bulgaria, in which Osman Pasha entrenched himself in 1877, and where he was compelled to capitulate and surrender to the Russians with his force of 42,000 men.

PLEYDELL, MR. PAULUS, a shrewd lawyer in Scott's "Guy Mannering."

PLIMSOLL, SAMUEL, "the sailor's friend," born at Bristol; after experience in a Sheffield brewery entered business in London as a coal-dealer; interesting himself in the condition of the sailor's life in the mercantile marine, he directed public attention to many scandalous abuses practised by unscrupulous owners, the overloading, under-manning, and insufficient equipment of s.h.i.+ps and sending unseaworthy vessels out to founder for the sake of insurance money; entering Parliament for Derby in 1868, he secured the pa.s.sing of the Merchant s.h.i.+pping Act in 1876 levelled against these abuses; his name has been given to the circle with horizontal line through the centre, now placed by the Board of Trade on the side of every vessel to indicate to what depth she may be loaded in salt water (1824-1898).

PLINLIMMON (i. e. five rivers), a mountain 2469 ft. high, with three summits, on the confines of Montgomery and Cardigan, so called as source of five different streams.

PLINY, THE ELDER, naturalist, born at Como, educated at Rome, and served in the army; was for a s.p.a.ce procurator in Spain, spent much of his time afterwards studying at Borne; being near the Bay of Naples during an eruption of Vesuvius, he landed to witness the phenomenon, but was suffocated by the fumes; his "Natural History" is a repertory of the studies of the ancients in that department, being a record, more or less faithful, from extensive reading, of the observation of others rather than his own; _d_. A.D. 79.

PLINY, THE YOUNGER, nephew of the preceding, the friend of Trajan; filled various offices in the State; his fame rests on his "Letters," of special interest to us for the account they give of the treatment of the early Christians and their manner of wors.h.i.+p, as also of the misjudgment on the part of the Roman world at the time of their religion, as in their eyes, according to him, "a perverse and extravagant superst.i.tion"

(62-115).

PLOTINUS, an Alexandrian philosopher of the Neo-Platonic school, born at Lycopolis, in Egypt; he taught philosophy at Rome, a system in opposition to the reigning scepticism of the time, and which based itself on the intuitions of the soul elevated into a state of mystical union with G.o.d, who in His single unity sums up all and whence all emanates, all being regarded as an emanation from Him (207-270).

PLUGSTON OF UNDERSHOT, Carlyle's name in "Past and Present" for a member or "Master-Worker" of the English mammon-wors.h.i.+pping manufacturing cla.s.s in rivalry with the aristocracy for the ascendency in the land, who pays his workers his wages and thinks he has done his duty with them in so doing, and is secure in the fortune he has made by that cash-payment gospel of his as all the law and the prophets, called of "Undershot," his mill being driven by a wheel, the working power of which is hidden unheeded by him, to break out some day to the damage of both his mill and him.

PLUMPTRE, EDWARD HAYES, distinguished English divine and scholar, born in London; was Dean of Wells; as a divine he wrote commentaries on books of both the Old and New Testaments, and as a scholar executed able translations in verse of Sophocles, aeschylus, and the "Commedia" of Dante, the last perhaps his greatest and most enduring work (1821-1891).

PLUNKET, LORD, Chancellor of Ireland, born in Ireland, bred to the bar; entered the Irish House of Commons; opposed the Union with Great Britain; after the Union practised at the bar, and held legal appointments; was made a peer, and materially aided the Duke of Wellington in the House of Lords in carrying the Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation Bill of 1829 (1764-1854).

PLUTARCH, celebrated Greek biographer and moralist, born at Chaeronea, in Boeotia; studied at Athens; paid frequent visits to Rome, and formed friends.h.i.+ps with some of its distinguished citizens; spent his later years at his native place, and held a priesthood; his fame rests on his "Parallel Lives" of 46 distinguished Greeks and Romans, a series of portraitures true to the life, and a work one of the most valuable we possess on the ill.u.s.trious men of antiquity, and an enduring memorial of them (50-120).

PLUTO, G.o.d of the nether world, son of Kronos and Rhea, brother of Zeus and Poseidon, and husband of Persephone; on the dethronement of Kronos the universe was divided among themselves by the three brothers, Zeus a.s.suming the dominion of the upper world and Poseidon that of the ocean, leaving the nether kingdom to him, a domain over which and forth of which he ruled with a greater and more undisputed authority than the other two over heaven, earth, and sea.

PLUTONIC THEORY, the theory that unstratifled rocks were formed by fusion in fire.

PLUTUS, the G.o.d of riches, son of Jason and Demeter. Zeus is said to have put out his eyes that he might bestow his gifts without respect to merit, that is, on the evil and the good impartially.

PLYMOUTH (87), the largest town in Devons.h.i.+re, stands on the N.

sh.o.r.e of Plymouth Sound, 250 m. W. of London by rail; adjacent to it are the towns of Stonehouse and Devonport. Among the chief buildings are a Gothic town-hall, a 15th-century church, and a Roman Catholic cathedral.

The chief industry is chemical manufactures. There is a large coasting and general trade, and important fisheries. Many sea-going steams.h.i.+p companies make it a place of call. The Sound is an important naval station, and historically famous as the sailing port of the fleet that vanquished the Armada.

PLYMOUTH BRETHREN, an anti-clerical body of Christians, one of the earliest communities of which was formed in Plymouth about 1830; they accept, along with Pre-Millenarian views, generally the Calvinistic view of the Christian religion, and exclude all unconverted men from their communion, while all included in the body are of equal standing, and enjoy equal privileges as members of Christ. They appear to regard themselves as the sole representatives in these latter days of the Church of Christ, and as the salt of the earth, for whose sake it exists, and on whose decease it and its works of darkness will be burnt up. They are known also by the name of Darbyites, from the name of one of their founders, a barrister, John Nelson Darby, an able man, and with all his exclusiveness a sincere disciple of Christ (1800-1882).

PNEUMONIA, name given to acute inflammation of the lungs.

PO, the largest river in Italy, rises 6000 ft. above sea-level in the Cottian Alps, and after 20 m. of rocky defiles emerges on the great Lombardy plain, which it crosses from W. to E., receiving the Ticino, Adda, Mincio, and Trebbia, tributaries, and enters the Adriatic by a rapidly growing delta. Its total course is 360 m.; the width and volume of its stream make it difficult to cross and so a protection to all Italy. The chief towns on its banks are Turin, Piacenza, and Cremona.

POCAHONTAS, the daughter of an Indian chief in Virginia, who favoured the English settlers there, saving the life of Captain Smith the coloniser, and afterwards married John Rolfe, one of the settlers; came to England, and was presented at Court; several Virginian families trace their descent to her.

POCKET BOROUGH, a borough in which the influence of some magnate of the place determines the voting at an election time, a thing pretty much of the past.

POc.o.c.k, EDWARD, English Arabic and Hebrew scholar, born at Oxford, and occupied both the chairs of Arabic and Hebrew there, and left works in evidence of his scholars.h.i.+p and learning in both languages, quite remarkable for the time when he lived (1604-1691).

POc.o.c.kE, RICHARD, English prelate, born at Southampton; travelled extensively, particularly in the East; wrote a description of the countries of the East and of others, among them "Tours In Scotland" and a "Tour in Ireland," all deemed of value (1704-1765).

PODESTA, the name given to the chief magistrate of an Italian town, with military as well as munic.i.p.al authority; he was salaried, and annually elected to the office by the council, and had to give an account of his administration at the end of his term.

PODIEBRAD, GEORGE, king of Bohemia; rose, though a Hussite, and in spite of the Pope, from the ranks of the n.o.bles to that elevation; forced his enemies to come to terms with him, and held his ground against them till the day of his death (1420-1471).

POE, EDGAR ALLAN, an American poet, born in Boston, Ma.s.sachusetts; a youth of wonderful genius, but of reckless habits, and who came to an unhappy and untimely end; left behind him tales and poems, which, though they were not appreciated when he lived, have received the recognition they deserve since his death; his poetical masterpiece, "The Raven," is well known; died at Baltimore of inflammation of the brain, insensible from which he was picked up in a street one evening (1809-1849).

POERIO, CARLO, Italian patriot; was conspicuous in the revolutionary movement of 1848; was arrested and banished, but escaped to England, where he was received with sympathy by Mr. Gladstone among others; he rose into power on the establishment of the kingdom of Italy (1803-1867).

POET LAUREATE, the English court poet, an office which dates from the reign of Edward IV., the duty of the holder of it being originally to write an ode on the birthday of the monarch.

POETICAL JUSTICE, ideal justice as administered in their writings by the poets.

POETRY, the gift of penetrating into the inner soul or secret of a thing, and bodying it forth rhythmically so as to captivate the imagination and the heart.