to take Livonia, nominally as a fief of Poland, but really as an hereditary possession of the Saxon house. Military operations against Sweden’s Baltic provinces were to be begun simultaneously by the Saxons and Russians. After thus forging the first link of the partition treaty, Patkul proceeded to Moscow, and, at a secret conference held at Preobrazhenskoye, easily persuaded Peter the Great to accede to the nefarious league (Nov. 11, 1699). Throughout the earlier, unluckier days of the Great Northern War, Patkul was the mainstay of the confederates. At Vienna, in 1702, he picked up the Scottish general George Benedict Ogilvie, and enlisted him in Peter’s service. The same year, recognizing the unprofitableness of serving such a master as Augustus, he exchanged the Saxon for the Russian service. Peter was glad enough to get a man so famous for his talents and energy, but Patkul speedily belied his reputation. His knowledge was too local and limited. On the 19th of August 1704 he succeeded, at last, in bringing about a treaty of alliance between Russia and the Polish republic to strengthen the hands of Augustus, but he failed to bring Prussia also into the anti-Swedish league because of Frederick I.’s fear of Charles and jealousy of Peter. From Berlin Patkul went on to Dresden to conclude an agreement with the imperial commissioners for the transfer of the Russian contingent from the Saxon to the Austrian service. The Saxon ministers, after protesting against the new arrangement, arrested Patkul and shut him up in the fortress of Sonnenstein (Dec. 19, 1705), altogether disregarding the remonstrances of Peter against such a gross violation of international law. After the peace of Altranstädt (Sept. 24, 1707) he was delivered up to Charles, and at Kazimierz in Poland (Oct. 10, 1707) was broken alive on the wheel, Charles rejecting an appeal for mercy from his sister, the princess Ulrica, on the ground that Patkul, as a traitor, could not be pardoned for example’s sake.
See O. Sjögren, Johan Reinhold Patkul (Swed.) (Stockholm, 1882); Anton Buchholtz, Beiträge zur Lebensgeschichte J. R. Patkuls (Leipzig, 1893). (R. N. B.)
PATMORE, COVENTRY KERSEY DIGHTON (1823–1896),
English poet and critic, the eldest son of Peter George Patmore,
himself an author, was born at Woodford in Essex, on the 23rd
of July 1823. He was privately educated, being his father’s
intimate and constant companion, and derived from him his
early literary enthusiasm. It was his first ambition to become
an artist, and he showed much promise, being awarded the
silver palette of the Society of Arts in 1838. In the following
year he was sent to school in France, where he studied for six
months, and began to write poetry. On his return his father
contemplated the publication of some of these youthful poems;
but in the meanwhile Coventry had evinced a passion for science
and the poetry was set aside. He soon, however, returned to
literary interests, moved towards them by the sudden success of
Tennyson; and in 1844 he published a small volume of Poems,
which was not without individuality, but marred by inequalities
of workmanship. It was widely criticized, both in praise and
blame; and Patmore, distressed at its reception, bought up the
remainder of the edition and caused it to be destroyed. What
chiefly wounded him was a cruel review in Blackwood, written
in the worst style of unreasoning abuse; but the enthusiasm
of private friends, together with their wiser criticism, did much
to help him and to foster his talent. Indeed, the publication
of this little volume bore immediate fruit in introducing its
author to various men of letters, among whom was Dante
Gabriel Rossetti, through whose offices Patmore became known
to Holman Hunt, and was thus drawn into the eddies of the
pre-Raphaelite movement, contributing his poem “The Seasons”
to the Germ. At this time Patmore’s father became involved
in financial embarrassments; and in 1846 Monckton Milnes secured
for the son an assistant-librarianship in the British Museum,
a post which he occupied industriously for nineteen years,
devoting his spare time to poetry. In 1847 he married Emily,
daughter of Dr Andrews of Camberwell. At the Museum he was
austere and remote among his companions, but was nevertheless
instrumental in 1852 in starting the Volunteer movement. He
wrote an important letter to The Times upon the subject, and
stirred up much martial enthusiasm among his colleagues. In the
next year he republished, in Tamerton Church Tower, the more
successful pieces from the Poems of 1844, adding several new
poems which showed distinct advance, both in conception and
treatment; and in the following year (1854) appeared the first
part of his best known poem, “The Angel in the House,” which
was continued in “The Espousals” (1856), “Faithful for Ever”
(1860), and “The Victories of Love” (1862). In 1862 he lost
his wife, after a long and lingering illness, and shortly afterwards
joined the Roman Catholic Church. In 1865 he married again,
his second wife being Miss Marianne Byles, second daughter
of James Byles of Bowden Hall, Gloucester; and a year
later purchased an estate in East Grinstead, the history of
which may be read in How I managed my Estate, published in
1886. In 1877 appeared The Unknown Eros, which unquestionably
contains his finest work in poetry, and in the following
year Amelia, his own favourite among his poems, together with an
interesting, though by no means indisputable, essay on English
Metrical Law. This departure into criticism he continued
further in 1879 with a volume of papers, entitled Principle
in Art, and again in 1893 with Religio poetae. Meanwhile his
second wife died in 1880, and in the next year he married
Miss Harriet Robson. In later years he lived at Lymington,
where he died on the 26th of November 1896.
A collected edition of his poems appeared in two volumes in 1886, with a characteristic preface which might serve as the author’s epitaph. “I have written little,” it runs; “but it is all my best; I have never spoken when I had nothing to say, nor spared time or labour to make my words true. I have respected posterity; and should there be a posterity which cares for letters, I dare to hope that it will respect me.” The obvious sincerity which underlies this statement, combined with a certain lack of humour which peers through its naïveté, points to two of the principal characteristics of Patmore’s earlier poetry; characteristics which came to be almost unconsciously merged and harmonized as his style and his intention drew together into unity. In the higher flights, to which he arose as his practice in the art grew perfected, he is always noble and often sublime. His best work is found in the volume of odes called The Unknown Eros, which is full not only of passages but of entire poems in which exalted thought is expressed in poetry of the richest and most dignified melody. The animating spirit of love, moreover, has here deepened and intensified into a crystalline harmony of earthly passion with the love that is divine and transcending; the outward manifestation is regarded as a symbol of a sentiment at once eternal and quintessential. Spirituality informs his inspiration; the poetry is of the finest elements, glowing and alive. The magnificent piece in praise of winter, the solemn and beautiful cadences of “Departure,” and the homely but elevated pathos of “The Toys,” are in their various manners unsurpassed in English poetry for sublimity of thought and perfection of expression. Patmore is one of the few Victorian poets of whom it may confidently be predicted that the memory of his greater achievements will outlive all consideration of occasional lapses from taste and dignity. He wrote, at his best, in the grand manner, melody and thought according with perfection of expression, and his finest poems have that indefinable air of the inevitable which is after all the touchstone of the poetic quality. His son, Henry John Patmore (1860–1883), left a number of poems posthumously printed at Mr Daniell’s Oxford Press, which show an unmistakable lyrical quality. (A. Wa.)
The standard life of Patmore is the Memoirs and Correspondence (1901), edited by Basil Champneys. See also E. W. Gosse, Coventry Patmore (1905, “Literary Lives” series), and an essay by Mrs Meynell prefixed to the selection (1905) in the “Muses Library.”
PATMOS, an island in the east of the Aegean Sea, one of the group of the Sporades, about 28 m. S.S.W. of Samos, in 37° 20′ N. lat. and 26° 35′ E. long. Its greatest length from N. to S. is about 10 m., its greatest breadth 6 m., its circumference, owing to the winding nature of the coast, about 37 m. The island,
