obliged to go to his province to take care of his small property. Retiring with his sister to his estate of Ablancourt, he passed the rest of his life upon it, only occasionally spending the winter at Paris, for the purpose of printing his works. When, in 1662, Colbert made a kind of muster of the men of letters in France, for the purpose of selecting those who in their several kinds were best qualified to labour for the glory of the King, (the leading object of that reign,) D'Ablancourt, who had now made himself known by numerous writings, was fixed upon for historiographer to His Majesty, with a pension of 1000 crowns. But the King, being informed that he was a protestant, declared that he would have no historian who was not of his own religion, and the appointment was superseded. The pension, however, was continued to him as a man of learning; but he probably received little of it, since he is said to have died poor. After severe sufferings from the stone and gravel, which he bore with patience, he sunk under them in October 1664, in his 59th year.

It is chiefly as a translator that D'Ablancourt has obtained a name among polite writers, and his industry in this office was remarkable. He published versions of Minutius Felix, four of Cicero's Orations, Tacitus, Lucian, Xenophon's Anabasis, Arrian's Hist. of Alexander, Caesar's Commentaries, Thucydides with Xenophon's Continuation, the Apophthegms of the Ancients, Frontinus on Stratagems, and Marmol's Description of Africa. In all these he was very careful as to style, and readily attended to the suggestions of his friends for its improvement; whence he was reckoned one of the best French writers of the age. With respect to the mode of translating, he adopted the splendid but hazardous principle of writing like an orginal author, with all the freedom and boldness of expression that would have been expected on such a supposition. This occasionally led him. to great deviations from the sense of his originals, so that his versions acquired the title of les belles infidelles. On this account, as well as the alteration of language since the period in which he wrote, they are much fallen in estimation. D'Ablancourt had studied Hebrew at Leyden, and the Bible was one of the books on which he bestowed the closest attention. He read it with all the commentators, and was well acquainted with all its difficulties. With several other eminent men, he thought the natural arguments for the immortality of the soul were defective, and relied only on the faith inspired by revelation. On this subject he wrote a

discourse to his friend Patru, which is published in the works of the latter. Bayle. Moreri. Nouv. Dict. Hist.

- A. PERRY, JOHN, Captain, an eminent English engineer, was recommended to the Czar Peter during his abode in England, as a proper person to assist him in his favourite schemes of forming a navy, and promoting inland navigation within his dominions. He was taken into the Czar's service at a liberal salary, and with promises of further reward, and was employed for three summers in making a communication between the rivers Don and Volga. The Czar's ill success against the Swedes at the battle of Narva, and other circumstances of discouragement, caused an interruption of the work in 1707; and during the two following years he was engaged in refitting the ships at Voronetz, and making navigable the river of that name. Like most of the foreigners whom the Czar's offers drew into Russia, he experienced many disappointments respecting the recompence for his labours, and finally was. indebted to the protection of the English ambassador for the privilege of quitting the country in 1712. After his return, he published "The State of Russia," 8vo., 1716. In 1721 he was employed in stopping the alarming breach of the embankment of the Thames at Dagenham, which he successfully performed, and of which he published an "Account" in 1721, 8vo. He was also consulted about improving the harbour of Dublin, and printed an "Answer" to some objections made to his plan. He died in 1733.-A.

PERSES or PERSEUS, the last King of Macedon, was the son of Philip V. by a concubine. He had a younger brother, Demetrius, who was the offspring of a legitimate marriage, and who, besides possessing various popular qualities, was more generally esteemed than himself. Demetrius had been given by his father, after an unsuccessful war, as a hostage to the Romans, and had received most of his education at Rome, where he had formed strong attachments. On all these accounts Perses regarded him with much jealousy and dislike, and employed every art to render him suspected by his father. Philip's continued enmity to the Romans, with whom he was meditating again. to try the fortune of war, gave Perses a great advantage in his attempts, since Demetrius did not conceal his predilection for that people, who, on their part, treated the young Prince with singular favour and respect. The difference between the brothers at length broke out into open hostility, and Perses accused

Demetrius of a conspiracy against his life. Although Philip, with an appearance of impartiality, endeavoured to heal the breach, his hatred to the Romans alienated him from his younger son, and made him lean entirely to the elder. Not long after, Perses suborned two Macedonian nobles, who were sent ambassadors to Rome, to produce a forged letter, purporting to be from Quintus Flaminius, which implied that Demetrius had in reality been endeavouring to supplant his brother in the future succession to the crown, by means of his interest with the Romans. In consequence, Demetrius was put under arrest, and by his father's orders was poisoned. Philip at length discovered the fraud that had been practised upon him, and in a paroxysm of grief and indignation, had resolved to exclude Perses and appoint his cousin Antigonus successor to the crown; but he died before he had prepared matters for such a change.

Perses came to the throne B. C. 178, and his first act was to cause his competitor Antigonus to be put to death. He, however, attempted to extinguish the odium of this execution by a mild and prudent government. He ingratiated himself with his own subjects by administering justice in person with impartiality, and gained the good-will of his Grecian neighbours by relinquishing the invidious claims of his house upon their cities. To the Romans he sent an embassy of friendship, which they returned by the mission of ambassadors who took upon themselves to controul him as a dependent, rather than treat him as a sovereign prince. Misunderstandings, therefore, soon arose between them; and in the prospect of a war Perses sedulously cultivated the friendship of the Greek states and the neighbouring princes. He married his sister to Prusias King of Bithynia, and himself espoused Laodicea, daughter of Seleucus, the son of Antiochus the Great. He also made ample provision of money and military stores, and kept on foot a numerous and well-disciplined army. With these laudable measures of policy he did not scruple to join base and treacherous attempts against his enemies. Eumenes King of Pergamus, his hereditary enemy, and who had made complaints against him before the Roman senate, having paid a visit to the temple at Delphi, was attacked by assassins on his return, and left for dead. This villainy was traced to Perses, who was soon afterwards accused of a plot for poisoning the principal persons in Rome who opposed the Macedonianinterest. To the Roman ambassadors who

charged him with these crimes he gave such an answer that they left his kingdom, and every thing tended to imme diate hostilities. Perses still negotiated for peace, but was haughtily answered, that he might treat with the consul who would shortly arrive in his kingdom with an army. When the war was declared, he put himself at the head of a finer army than had been seen in Macedon since the expedition of Alexander the Great, and marched into Thessaly He insulted in his camp the Roman consul,. who was much inferior in force, and gained considerable advantage in a battle. Alarmed with his victory, upon reflection on the enemy with whom he was engaged, he renewed proposals of peace on humiliating terms, but could obtain no other conditions than entire submission to the determination of the Roman people. He then withdrew from Thessaly, and retreated into Macedon, whilst the Romans advanced through the vale of Tempe. As the danger approached, Perses gave many proofs. of timorous and wavering policy, together with the avarice and cruelty which were inherent in his nature. For a considerable time, however, the Romans made small progress.. They had justly incurred the suspicion of intending to reduce all Greece under their dominion, and they were involved in a war with Gentius King of Illyria. Their commanders likewise were envious of each other, and acted with no unanimity. At length the conduct of the Macedonian war was committed to the celebrated Paulus Æmilius, who soon changed the face of affairs. Of the succeeding military transactions an account has been given under his article. (See Æmilius, Paulus.) It will suffice here to mention, that Perses, having retreated to Pydna, was induced to put his fate to the hazard of a general engagement, in which he was totally defeated, B. C. 168. It is affirmed by Polybius and Livy, that during the battle Perses was employed in sacrificing to Hercules in the city of Pydna; but one Posidonius, a Greek writer, who says he was present, affirms that Perses, notwithstanding: he had been disabled the day before by a kick from a horse, insisted upon being conveyed. into the field, where he encouraged his men during the combat, till a wound from a dart compelled him to withdraw. He fled, slenderly accompanied, to Pella, where, being remon strated with for his misconduct by two of his chamberlains, he stabbed them both with his own hand. Thence he retreated to Amphipolis, where, having mounted the tribunal to address.

the people, his tears flowed so fast as to prevent his utterance. Finding the Amphipolitans bent upon making terms with the conqueror, he embarked with his treasures, and sailed to the Isle of Samothrace, and took refuge in the temple of Castor and Pollux, which was regarded as an inviolable sanctuary. Doubting his safety there, he hired a mariner of Crete to carry him with his family and treasures to that island; but the man, having got the money on board, set sail, and left Perses, after wandering all night, to regain the temple. In fine, he surrendered himself to Octavius the Roman admiral, who conveyed him to the camp of Emilius. The consul reproached him severely for his errors and imprudences, but afterwards treated him with much kindness. He was, however, reserved, according to the unfeeling Roman custom, to decorate the triumph of the victor; and being brought to Rome for that purpose, was previously confined in the common prison. When he understood that a triumph had been decreed to Æmilius, he sent to him to implore that he might not be made a public spectacle; but received no other answer than that " it was in his own power to prevent it;" meaning, by a voluntary death. But his mind was not of so high a tone as that of Cleopatra in a similar situation; and he endured to walk in the procession, clad in deep mourning, and followed by his two sons, his infant daughter, their attendants, and the principal Macedonian nobles. After this exhibition, he was inhumanly again shut in a loathsome dungeon, with the meanest criminals, and reduced to such wretchedness as to be obliged to beg a share of their pittance from his fellowprisoners. In their compassion, they also procured him a sword and a rope that he might put an end to such exquisite misery, but he was content to live on. At length, the Roman senate was shamed into a better treatment of their captive, and he was sent to Alba with his son Alexander, the other son being dead. Different accounts are given of the termination of his life, which some ascribe to the cruelty of his keeper, others to natural disease. He died about two years after being led in triumph, and in him ended the kingdom of Macedon, which had subsisted upwards of 600 years from the time of Caranus the first King. His son Alexander was placed with a mechanic, a worker in wood, became ingenious in his occupation, and was finally promoted to be a clerk to the Roman senate. Livy. Diodorus Siculus. Univers. Hist.-A.

PERSIUS. APLUS PERSIUS FLACCUS, a

Roman poet, is said to have been born at Volterra, in Tuscany, A. D. 34. Others have supposed Liguria to have been his native country, where he had a house at the Portus Lunæ. His family was of equestrian rank, and his education was that of a person of birth and fortune. He studied at Rome under the grammarian Palæmon, the rhetorician Virginius, Flaccus, and the stoic philosopher Cornutus. He lived in intimacy with several of the most eminent persons of his time, and was generally beloved for the modesty of his disposition, and the suavity of his manners. He died at the early age of 28, and bequeathed to his preceptor Cornutus his library of 700 volumes, with a considerable sum of money; but the philosopher accepted only the books, and divided the money among Persius's sisters. These are all the circumstances of his life with which we are acquainted, and which are chiefly derived from a brief notice of him ascribed to Suetonius.

As a poet, Persius is only known by his Satires, six in number, which were in high reputation among his countrymen; for both Martial and Quintilian mention the applause he acquired by his single book. They are of the grave and sententious kind, chiefly turning upon topics of general morals. The philosophy of his excellent preceptor Cornutus, to whom one of them is dedicated, has given them an elevation and purity of sentiment, which in some parts places them in the first rank of moral poetry; but their extreme obscurity almost destroys the pleasure of a perusal. This may undoubtedly be partly ascribed to our incapacity of entering into many allusions to persons and things which would be plain enough to his cotemporaries, but it is also to be imputed to his harsh and abrupt style, and extreme conciseness. There are supposed to be several strokes against Nero in his Satires, and four bombast lines are thought by critics to be transcribed from that imperial poetaster; but this is mere conjecture, and not very probable. Persius is generally edited with Juvenal. Isaac Casaubon is his best commentator: his editions are Paris, 1605, and London, 1647, 8vo. Brewster's metrical English version is much esteemed. Vossius. Bayle. Crusius. A.

PERTINAX, PUBLIUS HELVIUS, Roman Emperor, was born in the reign of Adrian, A. D. 126, near Alba Pompeia, in the present duchy of Montferrat. His father was a freedman, by occupation a maker of charcoal; but notwithstanding his humble condition, he took care to give his son a literary education. The young

man first employed himself in teaching a grammar-school, but dissatisfied with a sphere that gave no hope of advancement, he entered into the army, and served as a common soldier in Syria. Through the interest of Lollianus Anitus, his father's patron, he obtained the rank of centurion; and having distinguished himself in that post in the Parthian war, under Lucius Verus, he was promoted to the command of a cohort. He served with reputation in various countries, gradually rising in rank, till at length he was appointed superintendant or governor of Dacia. Some suspicions infused into the mind of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, caused him to be deprived of that office; his innocence, however, afterwards being made manifest, that excellent prince did not hesitate to acknowledge that he had wronged him, and by way of reparation gave him signal marks of his favour. Pertinax was made a senator, with pretorian rank, and was entrusted with the command of the first legion in the German war. By his military talents Rhotia and Noricum were recovered from the enemy in one campaign; and his success was rewarded with the consulate. On the rebellion of Avidius Cassius in Syria, Pertinax was sent against him: and after the death of that leader, he was recalled to guard the banks of the Danube, and command the army in Illyricum. The government of the two Moesias was then committed to him, and finally that of Syria, which he held till the accession of Commodus in the year 180. Upon that event he returned to Rome; but becoming suspected by Perennis, the all-powerful pretorian prefect, he was relegated into his native province of Liguria, where he passed three years of that dissolute reign in retirement. During this period he embellished his native place with several elegant buildings; but he permitted his father's poor house and shop in the midst of them to remain unaltered, as a memorial of his humble origin. After the fall of Perennis, Pertinax was sent by the Emperor into Britain, where the legions were in a state of great disaffection and indiscipline. The soldiers would willingly have transferred their allegiance to Pertinax, but he preserved his fidelity inviolate, and incurred much personal danger in quelling the mutinous spirit of the troops. At length he requested his recal from this turbulent province; and on his return to Italy was appointed to the important trust of superintending the supply of Rome with provisions. He was afterwards made proconsul of Africa, consul a second time, and governor of Rome.

VOL. VIII.

Pertinax was in possession of this last office, when the monstrous tyranny and extravagance of Commodus brought his detestable reign to an end on the last night of 192. Whether he were privy to the conspiracy against Commodus, as some assert, or unacquainted with it, as others of better authority testify, he was the person who at the time stood highest in the public opinion for the virtues and talents fit for empire. To him, therefore, the vacant throne was offered by the pretorian prefect Lætus, and the chamberlain Eclectus, which, after some hesitation, he accepted. He was taken to the camp of the pretorian guards, where, by the promise of a donative, he obtained a declaration in his favour, though something that he said in his speech to them concerning reformation of abuses was not well received; and it appeared from the first, that a wise and vigorous administration could not be agreeable to troops accustomed to the licence and debauchery of a dissolute rule. He then appeared before the assembled senate, where he seems rather to have overacted a reluctance to assume that imperial dignity which was unanimously urged upon him. In the end he yielded to their importunities, and was invested with all the honours and prerogatives of the sovereignty by an apparently free election. All the measures of this short reign were laudable and salutary. Pertinax found the treasury nearly empty, and was pressed to raise the sum for the donative to the soldiery. This he effected by no extortion on individuals, but by a public sale of all the articles of prodigal luxury which he found in the palace. He himself adopted a frugal and simple mode of living, which has, indeed, been represented by a historian unfavourable to his memory as mean parsimony; but excess of frugality in a sovereign is scarcely a public fault. He was enabled by it to abolish many oppressive taxes; and he showed his personal disregard of wealth by declaring that he would accept of no legacies from persons who left children or other lawful heirs. He discouraged all informations for treason, and administered justice with equal mildness and impartiality. Such an emperor was too good for those who had profited from the vices of a Commodus; and plots were soon formed among the pretorians to subvert the new government. Whilst Pertinax was absent at Ostia, an attempt was made to raise to the throne the consul Falco. He hastened back and com, plained of the fact before the senate; but when that body proposed immediately to con

K

went to Rome, where he was employed by Sixtus IV. to execute several pieces in his chapel. Returning to Florence, he found Michael-Angelo there in the height of his celebrity. His quarrel with that great man, and his avaricious character, exposed him to so much satire from the Florentine poets, that he was obliged to quit that city, and retire to Perugia. His hoardings in a long life rendered' him opulent; and it was his practice when he went abroad to carry with him a casket of gold by way of security. Of this treasure he was once robbed, and although he recovered the greatest part of it, the accident was thought to be the cause of his death, which took place in 1524, at the age of 78. Perugino had acquired from Verochio a graceful air in his heads, especially of his female figures. He finished his pictures with great care; but his manner was stiff and dry, and his outlines were often incorrect. His capital work in oil is an altar-piece at the church of St. Peter in Perugia. The greatest honour he acquired was, however, that of having been the master of Raphael, who assisted him in a number of his works. Pilkington's Dict.-A.

demn Falco as a traitor, he declared that no senator should suffer death in his reign, and dismissed him in safety. A mutinous spirit among the guards was still fostered by the prefect Lætus, who thought that his services were not sufficiently requited. At length a body of 300 of them had the audacity to leave the camp, and proceed through the streets of Rome with drawn swords to the palace, which they entered without opposition, all the Empe ror's officers making their escape when' they appeared. Pertinax rejected the counsel of his friends to conceal himself, as unworthy of his station; and resolved to meet them. Unexpectedly appearing before them with a serene and intrepid air, he expostulated with them upon their conduct, and made such an impression upon them, that they began to sheath their swords. At this critical moment, a ferocious Tungrian soldier threw his javelin at the Emperor's breast, crying, "The soldiers send you this ;" and the emotion of respect being thus dissolved, the rest rushed in, and dispatched him with many wounds. When he saw that his fate was inevitable, he wrapt his head in his toga, and invoking Jupiter the Avenger, fell without a struggle. This event took place on March 28, 193, in the 67th year year of Pertinax's age, after he had reigned not three months complete. His character is spoken highly of by cotemporary historians; but Capitolinus has branded him with the crime of rapacious avarice, of which, however, his conduct as emperor gives no token. His death was severely revenged by Septimius Severus, who thought he could not better ingratiate himself with the Roman people than by assuming his name a proof how much his memory was honoured. Herodian. Dio. Uni

vers. Hist. Crevier.-A.

PERUGINO, PIETRO, an eminent Italian painter, whose family name was Vannucci, was born at Perugia, in 1446. His father, who was in low circumstances, placed him with an ordinary painter, under whom he worked with great diligence, labouring to perfect himself in his art in the midst of severe hardships. At length he became a disciple of Andrea Verochio at Florence, with whom he soon made an extraordinary proficiency. The first piece by which he acquired fame, was a St. Jerom a St. Jerom before a crucifix, in which the mortified and emaciated figure of the saint was represented with admirable force and nature. A dead Christ, with a number of surrounding figures, painted as an altar-piece for a monastery at Florence, also gained him great applause. He

PERUSSEAU, SILVAN, a French Jesuit in the 18th century, who is spoken of as an ornament to the society by his virtues, and was greatly admired and followed as a preacher, and director of consciences. He was confessor, at first to the Dauphin, and afterwards to the King; and he retained the office last mentioned till his death in 1751, at an age which is not specified. He published only "A Funeral Oration for the Duke of Lorrain," and "A Panegyric on St. Lewis;" but after his death, two volumes of "Select Sermons" were printed from his manuscripts, in 1758, 12mo. It is acknowledged, that these sermons do not rival those of a Bourdaloue, for powerful and forcible reasoning, nor those of a Massillon, for striking and inimitably pathetic passages. They are said, however, to merit distinction from the ordinary class of pulpit compositions, and to be recommended by importance and weight of sentiment, order and regularity of method, liveliness of imagination, sensibility, and an easy, noble, and varied eloquence, though not always sufficiently chastised. Nouv. Dict. Hist.-M.

PERUZZI, BALDASSARRE, an eminent painter and architect, was born in 1481, at Accajano, in the diocese of Volterra. His father was a Florentine emigrant in reduced circumstances. After learning the principles of design at Siena, he applied with great diligence to copying