236 P L U P L Y stern and pitiless, but he was so only in discharge of his duty as custodian of the dead. But even Pluto once melted at the music of Orpheus when he came to fetch from the dead his wife Eurydice. The cap of Hades, like the Nebdkappe of German mythology, rendered its wearer invisible ; as a sort of thick cloud it was the reverse of the nimbus or halo of the heavenly gods. While the victims sacrificed to the latter were white, those offered to Pluto were black. His wife was Proserpine (Persephone), daughter of Demeter (Ceres), whom he carried off as she vas gathering flowers at Enna in Sicily. Like the Greeks, the ancient Italians believed that the souls of the dead dwelt underground ; in Latin the names for the god of the dead are Orcus and Father Dis, but the Greek name Pluto also frequently occurs. But, while Orcus was rather the actual slayer, the angel of death, Father Dis was the ruler of the dead, and thus corresponded to Pluto. Their names also correspond, Dis being a contraction for Dives, " wealthy." The Etruscan god of death was represented as a savage old man with wings and a hammer ; at the dadiatorial games of Rome a man masked after this fashion used to remove the corpses from the arena. In Komanesque folklore Orcus has passed into a forest-elf, a black, hairy, man-eating monster, upon whose house children lost in the woods are apt to stumble, and who .sometimes shows himself kindly and helpful. He is the Italian orco, the Spanish oyro, the English ogre. PLUTUS (TT-AOVTO?, " wealth "), the Greek god of riches, whom Demeter bore to lasion "in the fat land of Crete." He enriched every one whom he fell in with. According to Aristophanes, he was blinded by Zeus in order that he might not enrich the good and wise alone. At Thebes there was a statue of Fortune holding the child Plutus in her arms ; at Athens he was similarly represented in the arms of Peace ; at Thespiae he was represented standing beside Athene the Worker. Elsewhere he was represented as a boy with a cornucopia. He is the subject of one of the extant comedies of Aristophanes. PLYMOUTH, a municipal and parliamentary borough and seaport town of Devonshire, England, is picturesquely situated on Plymouth Sound in the south-west corner of the county, at the confluence of the Tamar and Plym, 44 miles south-west of Exeter. With the borough of Devonport and the township of East Stonehouse it forms the ag gregate town known as the Three Towns." There is railway communication by moans of the Great Western and South- Western lines, and by several branch lines connected with these sys tems. The defences of the town, in addition to the citadel, an obsolete fortifica- Environs of Plymouth. tion built by Charles II., on the site of an older fort, con sist of a most elaborate chain of forts of great strength mounted with guns of the heaviest calibre, and forming a complete line of defence round the whole circumference both landwards and seawards. The streets are for the most part narrow and crooked, and the houses very irregular both in style of architecture and in height. Great improvements liave, however, recently taken place. The more ancient part of the town near the water-side has been much altered, and a number of model dwellings have also lately been erected. In the principal thoroughfares there are numerous hand some shops and other imposing business establishments. Among the most important of the public buildings is the Guildhall, completed in 1874 at a cost of 56,000, a fine group in the Gothic style of the 13th century, with a lofty tower, and containing the town-hall with a fine organ and a series of historical windows, a police court and offices, a sessions and other court rooms, and the council chamber and municipal offices. The new post office in Westwell Street was erected at a cost of 12,000. The market, dating from 1804, and occupying about three acres in the centre of the town, is in course of reconstruction. A fine j clock-tower, erected by the corporation, stands at the junction of George Street and Union Street. The parish , church of St Andrews, some portions of which date from about 1430, has undergone alterations and improvements at different periods, and in 1874-75 was completely
- restored under the direction of the late Sir G. G. Scott.
I The tower, built in 1460, contains a fine peal of bells. i The church of Charles the Martyr was begun in 1640, when the parish was divided, but owing to the Civil Wai- was not completed till 1657. Of the other more modern parish churches there are none of special interest. The town is the seat of a Roman Catholic bishopric, the cathedral of which, a good building in the Early English style, was opened in 1858 at a cost of .10,000. Attached to it is the convent of Notre Dame, and several other religious houses and chapels. The Athenaeum (1812) is the home of the Plymouth Institution and the Devon and Corn wall Natural History Society. In connexion with it there are a lecture hall, a museum, art gallery, and a small but select scientific library. The Plymouth Proprietary Library | (1812) has a good selection of books in general literature,
- and the building also contains the library of the Plymouth
Incorporated Law Society and the Cottonian collection, which includes many relics of Sir Joshua Reynolds and a number of his pictures. The Free Public Library, estab- j lished in 1876, at present occupies the old Guildhall. The principal educational establishments are the Western College for the training of students for the ministry of the i Independent denomination ; the Plymouth College, a high school for boys ; the High School for Girls ; the Corpora- 1 tion Grammar School, founded in 1572 ; the Public School,
established in 1809 (one of the largest public schools in
England) ; the Grey Coat School ; the Blue Coat School ; ! the Orphan s Aid ; Lady Rogers s School ; the Orphan Asylum ; and the Household of Faith founded by the j well known Dr Hawker. The Plymouth school board has nine schools in full operation ; and each of the prin cipal parishes has also its parochial day school. The charitable institutions embrace the South Devon and East Cornwall Hospital, for which a fine range of buildings has lately been erected ; the Devon and Cornwall Female Orphan Asylum (1834); the Penitentiary and Female Home (1833); the Royal Eye Infirmary (1821); the South Devon and Cornwall Institution for the Blind (1860, new building erected 1876), and various other philanthropic societies. The only public recreation ground of any extent is the Hoe Park, 18 acres, a fine promenade sloping gradually to the sea, attached to which is a handsome promenade pier. On the Hoe a statue in bronze, by Boehm, of Sir Francis Drake was unveiled in 1884. Smcaton s lighthouse has been removed from the reef on which it stood for one hundred and twenty years, and is now a prominent object on the Hoe. The view from the Hoe includes Mount Edgcumbe with its beautifully wooded slopes, the Cornwall hills, the Dartmoor hills on the north-eastern horizon, and Eddy- stone lighthouse far away over the waters of the Channel. Plymouth not only holds a leading position in the country as a naval station, but is the centre of the growing trade of Devonshire and Cornwall, and is also becoming a holiday centre and health resort. To the south of the town is the Sound, protected by the magnificent break-
J water, within the limits of which and the harbours con-