The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 358

POST RESTANTE, department of a post-office where letters lie till they are called for.

POTEMKIN, Russian officer, born at Smolensk, of Polish descent; a handsome man with a powerful physique, who attracted the attention of Catharine II., became one of her chief favourites, and directed the foreign policy of Russia under her for 13 years; is understood to have been an able man, but unscrupulous (1736-1771).

POTOMAC RIVER, rising in the Alleghany Mountaine, flows 400 m.

eastward between Maryland and the Virginias into Chesapeake Bay; the Shenandoah is the chief tributary. The river is navigable as far up as c.u.mberland, and is tidal up to Was.h.i.+ngton, which is on its banks.

POTOSI (12), an important mining and commercial town of Bolivia, situated 13,000 ft. above sea-level on the slopes of the Cerro de Potosi; is one of the loftiest inhabited places on the globe, but a dilapidated, squalid place. There is a cathedral, next to Lima the finest in South America, a mint, and extensive reservoirs; the streets are steep and without vehicles; the climate is cold, and the surrounding hillsides barren; the industry is silver mining, but the mines are becoming exhausted and flooded.

POTSDAM (54), 18 m. SW. of Berlin, stands on an island at the confluence of the Nuthe and Havel, and is the capital of the Prussian province of Brandenburg; a handsome town, with broad streets, many parks and squares, numberless statues and fine public buildings; it is a favourite residence of Prussian royalty, and has several royal palaces; was the birthplace of Alexander von Humboldt; has sugar and chemical works, and a large violet-growing industry.

POTT, AUGUST FRIEDRICH, eminent philologist, born in Hanover; wrote on the Indo-Germanic languages, a work which ranks next in importance to Bopp's "Comparative Grammar"; he was the author of a number of philological papers which appeared in the learned journals of the day (1802-1887).

POTTER, JOHN, archbishop of Canterbury, born in Yorks.h.i.+re, son of a draper, a distinguished scholar; author of "Archaeologia Graeca," a work on the antiquities of Greece, and for long the authority on that subject (1674-1747).

POTTER, PAUL, a great Dutch animal-painter, lived chiefly at Amsterdam and The Hague; his most celebrated picture, life-size, is the "Young Bull," now at The Hague (1625-1654).

POTTERIES, THE, a district in North Staffords.h.i.+re, 9 m. long by 3 broad, the centre of the earthenware manufacture of England; it includes Hanley, Burslem, Stoke-upon-Trent, &c.

POT-WALLOPERS (i. e. Pot-boilers), a popular name given prior to the Reform Bill of 1832 to a cla.s.s of electors in a borough who claimed the right to vote on the ground of boiling a pot within its limits for six months.

POURPARLER, a diplomatic conference towards the framing of a treaty.

POUSSIN, NICOLAS, one of the most ill.u.s.trious of French painters, born near Andelys, in Normandy; studied first in Paris and then at Rome, where he first attained celebrity, whence he was in 1640 invited to Paris by Louis XIII., who appointed him painter-in-ordinary, with a studio in the Tuileries, returning three years after to Rome, where he died; he is the author of numerous great works, among which may be mentioned the "Shepherds of Arcadia," "The Deluge," "Moses drawn out of the Water,"

"The Flight into Egypt," &c., all of which display simplicity of taste, n.o.bility of character, and artistic talent of a high order (1594-1665).

POWELL, BADEN, physicist, rationalist in theology, born in London; was Savilian professor of Geometry at Oxford, wrote a number of treatises on physical subjects, and contributed to the famous "Essays and Reviews"

an essay on the evidences of Christianity which gave no small offence to orthodox people (1796-1860).

POWELL, MAJOR, American geologist and ethnologist, born in New York State; served in the Civil War, explored the canon of Colorado, and became Director of the U.S. Geological Survey; has written on geological and ethnological subjects; _b_. 1834.

POWERS, HIRAM, American sculptor, born in Vermont; began his career by modelling busts at Was.h.i.+ngton, in 1837 emigrated to Italy, and resided the rest of his life at Florence, where he produced his "Eve," his "Greek Slave," and other works (1807-1873).

POYNINGS'S LAW, an Act of Parliament held at Drogheda in 1495 in the reign of Henry VII., declaring that all statutes. .h.i.therto pa.s.sed in England should be also in force in Ireland, so called from Sir Edward Poynings, the lieutenant of Ireland at the time.

POYNTER, EDWARD JOHN, painter, born in Paris; was educated in England, studied in Rome and Paris, and settled in London in 1860; held appointments at University College and at Kensington, but resigned them in 1881 to prosecute his art, which he has since a.s.siduously done, and with distinction; was elected President of the Royal Academy in 1896; is the author of "Lectures on Art"; _b_. 1836.

POZZO DI BORGO, COUNT, the lifelong enemy of Napoleon, born in Ajaccio, Corsica; was a partisan of Paoli; obliged to flee from Corsica, took refuge in London, in Vienna, and then in Russia, and plotted everywhere to compa.s.s the ruin of his arch-enemy; seduced, out of simple hatred of him, Bernadotte from the service of Napoleon, and egged on the allies against France; represented Russia at the Congress of Vienna, and died in Paris (1764-1842).

POZZUOLI (12), an Italian city on the Bay of Naples, is noted for its cla.s.sical remains; the cathedral was once the temple of Augustus; there are ruins of other temples, a forum, and the ancient harbour of Puteoli, where St. Paul landed; the town has been submerged and partially raised again by volcanic action; Mount Solfatara, behind, supplies medicinal gases and springs; near it are the Italian works of Armstrong of Elswick.

P. P., CLERK OF THIS PARISH, the feigned author of a volume of memoirs written by Arbuthnot in ridicule of Burnet's "History of My Own Times."

PRAED, WINTHROP MACKWORTH, witty facile versifier and politician, born in London; practised in verse-making from a boy, notably at Eton; bred for the bar, entered Parliament as a Tory in 1830, and rose into office; wrote several verse-tales, some pieces of promise, such as "Arminius" and "My Pretty Josephine," a grotesque production called "The Red Fisherman," and exquisite _vers de societe_ (1802-1839).

PRaeTOR, a Roman magistrate at first, virtually a third consul, with administrative functions, chiefly judiciary, originally in the city, and ultimately in the provinces as well, so that the number of them increased at one time to as many as 16.

PRaeTORIAN GUARD, a select body of soldiers distributed in cohorts, as many as ten of a thousand each, to guard the person and maintain the power of the emperors, and who at length acquired such influence in the State as to elect and depose at will the emperors themselves, disposing at times of the imperial purple to the highest bidder, till they were in the end outnumbered and dispersed by Constantine in 312.

PRAGMATIC SANCTION, a term applied to "an ordinance of a very irrevocable nature which a sovereign makes in affairs belonging wholly to himself, or what he reckons within his own right," but applied more particularly to the decree promulgated by Charles VI., emperor of Germany, whereby he vested the right of succession to the throne of Austria in his daughter, Maria Theresa, wife of Francis of Lorraine, a succession which was guaranteed by France, the States-General, and the most of the European Powers.

PRAGUE (310), capital of Bohemia, on the Moldau, 217 m. by rail NW.

of Vienna, is a picturesque city with over 70 towers, a great royal palace, unfinished cathedral, an old town-hall, a picture-gallery, observatory, botanical garden, and museums; the University, partly German and partly Czech, has 300 teachers, 4000 students, and a magnificent library; the centre of an important transit trade, Prague is the chief commercial city of Bohemia; has manufactures of machinery, chemicals, leather, and textile goods; four-fifths of the population are Czechs; founded in the 12th century, it has suffered in many wars; was captured by the Hussites 1424, fell frequently during the Thirty Years' War, capitulated to Frederick the Great 1757, and in 1848 was bombarded for two days by the Austrian Government in quelling the democratic demonstrations of the Slavonic Congress of that year.

PRAIRIE, name given by the French to an extensive tract of flat or rolling land covered with tall, waving gra.s.s, mostly dest.i.tute of trees, and forming the great central plain of North America, which extends as far N. as Canada.

PRAKRIT, name given to a group of Hindu languages based on Sanskrit.

PRATIQUE, license given to a s.h.i.+p to enter port on a.s.surance from the captain to convince the authorities that she is free from contagious disease.

PRAXITELES, great Greek sculptor, born at Athens; executed statues in both bronze and marble, and was unrivalled in the exhibition of the softer beauties of the human form, especially the female figure, his most celebrated being the marble one of Aphrodite at Cnidus; he executed statues of Eros, Apollo, and Hermes as well, but they have all perished.

PRAYING-WHEELS, cylinders with printed prayers on them, driven by hand, water, or wind-power, in use among the Buddhists of Thibet.

PRE-ADAMITES, a race presumed to have existed on the earth prior to Adam; traditional first fathers of the Jews.

PRECESSION OF THE EQUINOXES, name given to the gradual s.h.i.+fting of the equinoctial points along the ecliptic from east to west. See EQUINOXES.