224 P L E T L 1 PLEURO-PNEUMONIA. See MURRAIN, vol. xvii. p. 60. PLEVNA, or PLEVEN, the chief town of one of the pro vinces in the principality of Bulgaria, lies in the midst of a series of hills (whose crests rise above it for 200 to 600 feet) and about 6000 yards to the east of the river Vid (a tributary of the Danube), into which the streamlets by which it is traversed discharge. Its position at the meet ing place of roads from Widdin, Sofia, Shipka, Biela, Zimnitza, and Nikopoli gives it a certain military import ance, and in the Russian campaign of 1877 it became one of the great centres of operation. The Russians, who had been defeated in two minor attacks on the 20th and 30th of July, were again repulsed with a loss of 18,000 men in an assault (September 7-13) in which they em ployed 75,000 infantry and 60,000 cavalry. They formally invested the town on October 24th and obliged Osman Pasha to surrender on December 10th. In 142 days^ the assailants had lost 40,000 men and the defenders 30,*000. Plevna, which contains two old Christian churches as well as a number of mosques, had 11,129 inhabitants in 1881, the province at the same date containing 100,870. See F. V. Greene, The Russian Army and its Campaigns in Turkey in 1877-78, London, 1879. PLEYEL, IGXAZ JOSEPH (1757-1831), though now almost forgotten, was once one of the most popular com posers in Europe. He was born at Ruppersthal, near Vienna, June 1, 1757, studied the pianoforte under Van Hal (known in England as Vanhall), and learned com position from Haydn, who became his dearest friend. He was appointed maitre de chapelle at Strasburg in 1783; and in 1791 he was invited to London, where, though Haydn was also there, he achieved an immense success. On his return to Strasburg he narrowly escaped the guillo tine ; but, after proving that he was not an aristocrat, he was permitted to remain until 1795, when he migrated to Paris. Here he opened a large music shop, published the first complete edition of Haydn s quartetts, and founded, in 1807, the pianoforte manufactory which still bears his name. He died at Paris, November 14, 1831. Pleyel s compositions are very numerous, but it is only in the earlier ones that the fire of true genius is discernible. His daughter-in-law, Maria Plcyel, nie Moke (1811-1875), and wife of his eldest son, Camille, was one of the most accomplished pianistes of the age. PLINY, THE NATURALIST (23-79 A.D.). Caius Plinius Secundus, commonly distinguished as the elder Pliny, the author of the Natural History, is believed to have been born (23 A.D.) at Novum Comum (Como). In the first sentence of his preface he calls Catullus, born at Verona, " conterraneum meum," meaning, perhaps, a native of Gailia Cisalpina, though it may be that Verona was the actual birthplace of both. 1 At Comum, however, was the family estate which the younger Pliny inherited from his uncle. Like his nephew, the elder Pliny had seen military service, having joined the campaign in Germany under L. Pomponius Secundus ; 2 like him also, he had been a pleader in the law-courts, and a diligent student of Greek and Roman literature. Much of his literary work was done, he tells us himself, in the hours stolen from sleep. Of his many works the Naturalis Historia in thirty-seven books has alone been preserved, and in a nearly complete state. This voluminous treatise professes to be an encyclo paedia of Roman knowledge, mainly based on the researches and speculations of the Greeks. What A. von Humboldt 1 But, as has been shrewdly remarked by Mr Long, " this some what barbarous word is much better adapted to intimate that Catullus was a fellow-countryman of Pliny than that he was a fellow-townsman. " " De Vita Pomponi Secundi duo (libri)" are enumerated among his uncle s works by the younger Pliny, Ep. iii. 5, 3, who adds, " a quo singulariter amatus hoc memoriae amici quasi debitum munus exsolvit." accomplished in our own times, in his great work Cosmos, Pliny had essayed to carry out on similar principles, but, of course, without the scientific knowledge, and also with out the comprehensive view of the universe which is the inheritance of the present age. Pliny, we must admit, was an industrious compiler, but he was not, like Aristotle, a man of original research. 3 In his first book, which contains a summary of the whole work, he names the authors, both Greek and Latin, from which the matter of each book was derived. 4 The list indeed is a surprising one, and of comparatively few have we any remains. Among Roman authors he most frequently cites Cato the censor, M. Varro, Celsus, Cor nelius Nepos, Pomponius Mela, Columella ; among the Greeks, Aristotle, Theophrastus, Democritus, more than oneApollodorus, Apollonius of Pergamum,and Hippocrates. The Latin writers he calls simply "auctores;" the Greeks, of whom the list is considerably longer, are "externi." The preface, written in a rather inflated and by no means clear style, very inferior to the Latinity of the younger Pliny, is a dedication of the work in a strain of extravagant adulation to Titus, who was then, as Caesar, joint emperor with his father Vespasian. Pliny apologizes for dedicating to such a man a work of such commonplace and hackneyed subject-matter, but he pleads the novelty of the undertaking, and boasts of being the first who had attempted so comprehensive a theme. The work itself commences with a pantheistic definition of the universe, Mundus, i.e., world and sky, and the sun and stars in space. This, he says, is reasonably regarded as a divinity eternal, boundless, uncreated, and inde structible. Nature, he adds, and Nature s work are one, and to suppose there is more than one universe is to believe there can be more than one Nature, which he calls "furor." His theology is "agnostic," or Epicurean; if there is any God, he says, it is vain to inquire His form and shape ; He is entirely a Being of feeling and sentiment and intelligence, not of tangible existence. He believes in the " religion of humanity," according to a rather recent definition of the idea. God is what Nature is ; God cannot do what Nature cannot do ; He cannot kill Himself, nor make mortals immortal, nor raise the dead to life, nor cause one who has lived never to have lived at all, or make twice ten anything else than twenty. The last sentence of his work is remarkable, and is characteristic of a pagan piety which takes Nature alone for its God : " Salve, parens rerum omnium Natura, teque nobis Quiri- tium solis celebratum esse numeris omnibus tuis fave" (xxxvii. 205). But, although he regarded nature as one whole, of the great doctrine of the unity of nature and the tendency of all its operations to one definite end Pliny had no correct idea. He had a great store of ill-digested knowledge, not only imperfect in itself, but put together on no consistent plan. His style too is forced and somewhat pedantic, so that to read through and understand even a single book is by no means a light task. To give an outline sketch of the Natural History, it may be said that book ii. treats of earth, stars, meteorics, and terrestrial pheno mena, such as earthquakes, elevation of islands, &c. Books iii. to vi. inclusive are devoted to a geographical account of the known 3 He claims for himself " ingenium perquam mediocre," Prsef. 12. His nephew (iii. 5, 8) calls it "acre ingenium," which may mean active and energetic. 4 Hence he reckons the number of books at 36, the subject begin ning with Book ii. The matter of these, he says, comprising 20,000 points worthy of attention, he has collected from the perusal of about 2000 books, and from 100 Roman authors of special note (ex exquisitis auctoribus centum), Fraef. 17. The first book the author regards as an appendix to the dedicatory letter or preface, " Quia occupationi- bus tuis publico bono parcendum erat, quid singulis contineretur libris
huic epistulce subjuuxi," Preef. 33.