Page:A biographical dictionary of modern rationalists.djvu/333

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PEMBERTON


PERRENS


1739. He delivered the Harveian Oration in 1719. He edited Newton s Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms (1728), and was distinguished in London society as one of the most studious and learned physicians of the day. Viscount Percival says in his Diary : " Dr. Holmes told me that now Dr. Tyndal [Tindal] is dead the head of the unbelievers is Dr. Pellett, the physician, who, though he never published anything, is a man of the best learning and the coolest speculative infidel of the whole pack " (i, 402).

PEMBERTON, Charles Reece, actor and writer. B. Jan. 23, 1790. Ed. Uni tarian Charity School, Birmingham. He was apprenticed to a brassfounder, but, being seized by a press-gang at Liverpool, he went to sea and served some years in the Navy. He was then on the stage for many years, and was at one time manager of a theatre in the West Indies. Returning to England in 1827, he won great esteem as a lecturer and reciter, as well as on the stage. He played Shylock at Covent Garden in 1829. Pemberton was a friend of W. J. Fox, of South Place, and wrote in his Monthly Repository. In that magazine he began an autobiographical novel, Pel Verjuice, which he did not live to complete. It was published, with three plays and other pieces, and a memoir, after his death (Life and Literary Remains, 1843). He was a friend of G. J. Holyoake, whose views he shared. D. Mar. 3, 1840.

PENZIG, Rudolph, Ph.D., German educationist. B. Jan. 30, 1855. Ed. Breslau and Halle Universities. Penzig adopted teaching, and from 1879 to 1889 he was head of a school at Adramundt. Ho then directed an institution at Montreux for four years, and since 1893 he has lived at Berlin, lecturing for the Humanist Society and writing. His first work was on Schopenhauer (Arthur Schopenhauer und menschliche Willensfreiheit, 1879), and his later works are mostly concerned with education. He edits EthiscJic Kultur, and

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works in the Moral Instruction Movement and the Monist League. His Eationalist views may be read in his Laienpredigten (1905, a collection of Ethical addresses) and Ohne Kirche (1907).

PERIER, Casimir, French statesman. B. Oct. 12, 1777. Ed. Oratorian College, Lyons, and Paris. He joined the army, and greatly distinguished himself in the Italian wars. In 1802 he founded, with his brother, a banking-house, aud became a wealthy man. He entered the Chambre in 1817, and, though a strong opponent of the clerical-royalist reaction, he was nominated Minister of Finance and Commerce in 1828. The more radical anti-clericals resented his action, but Perier was a man of moderate politics and often opposed them. He resigned, how ever, when the reactionary Polignac became Premier, and he supported the Eevolution of 1830. He was elected President of the new Chambre, and in the following year was nominated President of the Council and Minister of the Interior. Perier was the grandfather of Casimir- Perier, whose father altered the name to that form. He was a Deist (Opinions et Discours, edited by Remusat, 1838), and his differences from the more advanced Rationalists were mainly political. D. May 16, 1832.

PERIER, Jean Paul Pierre Casimir.

See CASIMIR-PERIER.

PERRENS, Professor Frangois Tommy, D. es L., French historian. B. Sep. 20, 1822. Ed. Bordeaux Ecole Norm ale. In 1853 he was appointed professor of rhetoric at the Lycee Bona parte, and in 1878 at the Polytechnic. He was admitted to the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences in 1887, and was from 1875 to 1891 an inspector for the Paris Academy. Three of his historical works (Jerome Savonarole, 2 vols., 1853 ; L eglise et I etat sous le regne de Henri IV, 2 vols., 1872; and La democratic en France 594