He was a canon of Windsor, and at one time rector of Ivinghoe, Buckinghamshire, and was presented by the king to the living of Wearmouth, Durham. On 20 Sept. 1381 the king appointed him archdeacon of Canterbury, and on 28 Dec. he was admitted to the deanery of Lichfield, which he resigned on 30 April 1390. He received a prebend of York in April 1383, was dean of the royal free chapel of St. Mary, Stafford, in 1384, and was installed prebendary of Lincoln in October 1389. Shortly before his death, which took place on or before 25 July 1390, he received from the crown a prebend in the collegiate church of St. Edith in Tamworth, Staffordshire, and was also appointed prebendary of St. Paul's, London. He wrote a chronicle in French from the ninth year of King John to his own time, and dedicated it to Prince Edward, and is said to have recorded the prince's exploits. Leland translated several extracts from a French epitome of this chronicle, and inserted them in his ‘Collectanea.’ From these extracts Mr. Maunde Thompson (Chronicon Galfridi Le Baker, pp. 183–4) concludes ‘that much of Pakington's chronicle must have been word for word the same as the revised edition of the French “Brute,”’ observing that this may perhaps afford a clue to the authorship of the second edition of the French version of the prose ‘Brut’ chronicle, compiled in the reign of Edward III, and ending at 1333.
[Leland's Comment. de Scriptt. Brit. c. 402, ii. 365, ed. Hall, and Collectanea, i. 454 sq. (2nd edit.); Bale's Cat. Scriptt. Brit. cent. vi. c. 68, p. 490 (ed. 1557), adds nothing to Leland, but divides Pakington's Chronicle into two books, the ‘Historia’ and the ‘Acta quinque regum;’ Tanner's Bibl. Brit. p. 569; Fuller's Worthies, ii. 474, ed. Nichols; Le Neve's Fasti Eccl. Angl. i. 41, 562, ii. 171, iii. 209, 379, ed. Hardy; Thompson's Chron. Galfr. le Baker, pp. 183–4.]
PALAIRET, ELIAS (1713–1765), philologer, born in 1713 at Rotterdam, was descended from a French family that had taken refuge in Holland on the revocation of the edict of Nantes. After studying at Leyden he took holy orders, and became successively preacher at Aardenburg (1741), Doornik (1749), and Tournay. On coming to England he acted as pastor of the French church at Greenwich, and of St. John's Church, Spitalfields, and latterly preacher in the Dutch chapel at St. James's, Westminster. His abilities attracted the notice of John Egerton [q. v.], successively bishop of Bangor and Durham, who made him his chaplain. Palairet died in Marylebone on 2 Jan. 1765 (Gent. Mag. 1765, p. 46). He left all his property to his wife Margaret (Probate Act Book, P.C.C. 1765; will in P.C.C. 113, Rushworth).
His writings are:
- ‘Histoire du Patriarche Joseph mise en vers héroïques,’ 8vo, Leyden, 1738.
- ‘Observationes philologico-criticæ in sacros Novi Fœderis libros, quorum plurima loca ex autoribus potissimum Græcis exponuntur,’ 8vo, Leyden, 1752; several of Palairet's explanations were called in question in the ‘Acta eruditorum Lipsiensium’ for 1757, pp. 451–8, and by Charles Louis Bauer in the first volume of ‘Stricturarum Periculum.’
- ‘Proeve van een oordeelkundig Woordenboek over de heiligeboeken des Nieuwen Verbonds,’ 8vo, Leyden, 1754.
- ‘Specimen exercitationum philologico-criticarum in sacros Novi Fœderis libros,’ 8vo, London, 1755 (another edit. 1760); intended as a prospectus of a revised edition of his ‘Observationes.’
- ‘Thesaurus Ellipsium Latinarum, sive vocum quæ in sermone Latino suppressæ indicantur,’ 8vo, London, 1760 (new edit. by E. H. Barker, 1829). This useful book is accompanied by a double index of authors and words. In the preface Palairet promised a revised edition of Lambertus Bos's ‘Ellipses Græcæ,’ but he died before its completion.
In 1756 he corrected for William Bowyer the ‘Ajax’ and ‘Electra’ of Sophocles, published in 1758. His annotations on the treatises of Xenophon the Ephesian are printed in P. H. Peerlkamp's edition of that writer (4to, Haarlem, 1818).
[Aa's Biographisch Woordenboek der Nederlanden; Nouvelle Biographie Universelle (Michaud); Nouvelle Biographie Générale; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. ii. 286, 313, 716.]
PALAIRET, JOHN (1697–1774), author, born in 1697 at Montauban, was agent of the States-General in London and French teacher to three of the children of George II (Prince William, afterwards Duke of Cumberland, and the Princesses Mary and Louisa). He died in the parish of St. James's, Westminster, in 1774 (Gent. Mag. 1774, p. 598). He had been twice married and left two sons—Elias John and David—and three daughters.
He wrote:
- ‘Nouvelle Méthode pour apprendre à bien lire et à bien orthographier,’ 12mo, London, 1721 (12th edition 1758; new edit. by Formey, 8vo, Berlin, 1755).
- ‘Abrégé sur les Sciences et sur les Arts, en François & en Anglois,’ 8vo, London, 1736 (1740, 1741, 8th edit. revised by M. Du Mitand, 1788; 9th edit. 1792; an edition by Gottlob Ludwig Munter appeared at Brunswick and Hildesheim in 1746).
- ‘A
