POUPART, Francis, a celebrated anatomist, was born at Mans in 1661. He obtained his early education under the fathers of the Oratory in his native city; he then studied at Paris, and finally took the degree of M.D. at Rheims. In 1699 he was admitted member of the Academy of Sciences. He wrote several papers on comparative anatomy in the Journal des Savans, the Mémoires de l'Academie des Sciences, and in the Philosophical Transactions. His name is given to a tendinous structure which forms the lower boundary of the abdominal muscles in man. He also published "Chirurgie Complette" in 1695. He died in 1709.—F. C. W.
POURCHOT, Edme, was born at Poilli in 1651. He filled the chair of philosophy, first at the college des Grassins, and afterwards at that of the Four Nations. He embraced the method of Descartes; and his system, published under the title "Institutiones Philosophicæ," was at first as bitterly opposed as it was afterwards warmly welcomed. Late in life Pourchot devoted himself to the study of Hebrew. He died at Paris in 1734.
POUSSIN, Gaspar, one of the most distinguished of modern landscape painters, was born at Rome in 1613. His real name was Gaspar Dughet, and his parents were French; he is sometimes called by the Italians Gasparo Duche, and he has inscribed this name on his etchings. He took the name of Poussin from the celebrated Nicolas his master and his brother-in-law, the great French painter having married Gaspar's sister. He lived all his life at Rome and died there in 1675. Gaspar Poussin's pictures are generally of a grand but sombre character, picturesque, but often impressing the mind with feelings of solitude. Some of this peculiarity of his works is owing to their darkness, which is, however, partly accidental. He was fond of painting on dark grounds, and thus through the sinking in of the lighter portions, his pictures have in course of time become much lower in tone than they originally were. The National gallery is rich in the works of Gaspar Poussin, possessing among its six specimens of the painter, several masterpieces, as the "Sacrifice of Isaac," and the "Landstorm," formerly in the Angerstein gallery; and an "Italian Landscape with a view of a town," bequeathed by Lord Farnborough, which has darkened less than is usual with his works. His tempera pictures, of which there are many at Rome, are not dark; his scenes are generally taken from the neighbourhood of Rome. His figures are said to have been frequently inserted by Nicolas Poussin. Gaspar etched a few plates.—(Pascoli, Vite de' Pittori, &c., Moderni, 2 vols., 4to, Rome, 1730-37.)—R. N. W.
POUSSIN, Nicolas, the most distinguished of the French painters of the seventeenth century, was born at Andely in Normandy in the month of June, 1594, and having learnt painting under Quintin Varin, a master of his native town, he went young to Paris, and there completed his studies. Having worked some years in Paris with precarious fortune, and not meeting with the success he desired, Nicolas set out in 1624 for Rome, where he cultivated a friendship with the sculptor Du Quesnoy, better known as Il Fiammingo. They lived in the same house, and Du Quesnoy's devoted admiration of the antique remains at Rome, seems to have led Poussin into the same taste, and thus influenced his future style in figure painting, always remarkable for its strong antique bias. While he was improving his drawing by the study of ancient bassi-relievi, he advanced himself in colouring by attending the school of Domenichino, then at the height of his reputation in Rome. He also studied anatomy. Notwithstanding all these labours he met with little success, until he was taken by the hand by Cardinal Barberini, to whom he had been introduced by the poet Marino. He painted for the cardinal the "Death of Germanicus"' and the "Capture of Jerusalem," and by these works established his reputation. In 1629 he married the sister of his pupil, Gaspar Dughet, afterwards called Poussin. Among his most celebrated works of this period is the series of the "Seven Sacraments," now at Belvoir Castle, which he repeated for his friend M. de Chantelou; this set is now at Bridgewater House. Poussin again visited Paris in 1640 with M. de Chantelou, and was introduced by Cardinal Richelieu to the king, Louis XIII., who, wishing to retain him in Paris, gave him rooms in the Tuilleries, and the title of painter in ordinary, with a salary of £120 a year. Professional rivalries, however, and a want of acquaintance in the French capital, rendered it an unpleasant place for the now Roman painter to live in. Poussin seems to have undertaken to reside in Paris, but obtained leave in 1642 to return to Rome to fetch his wife; as, however, the king died during his absence, he preferred remaining at Rome, and never returned to France. He died in Rome on the 19th of November, 1665, in his seventy-second year, and was buried in the church of San Lorenzo in Lucina. The pictures of Nicolas Poussin are numerous and are well-known in prints: he excelled also greatly as a landscape painter, a rare quality for a figure painter in those times. His figures are generally well drawn and well coloured, but his compositions are criticized as being too uniformly and too closely in the taste of the ancient bassi-relievi. He has, however, left us many admirable pictures, which so far from suffering from this peculiarity of his taste, are greatly enhanced by it. His subjects as well as his style are for the most part classical. Among the several specimens of his work in the National gallery are two of his masterpieces, "A Bacchanalian Dance," with admirable figures of Fauns and Bacchantes dancing in a ring, apparently one of four pictures painted in Paris for Cardinal Richelieu; and "A Bacchanalian Festival," a landscape with Fauns, Satyrs, and Centaurs, in wild revelry—one of three painted for the Duke de Montmorenci, formerly in the Barberini palace in Rome. There is a good print of the dance by G. T. Doo, R.A.—(Bellori, Vite de' Pittori, &c., 1672; Felibien, Entretiens sur les Vies des Peintres, &c., 1685. Gault de St. Germain published a Life of Poussin in 1806, and a collection of his letters was published in Paris in 1824.)—R. N. W.
POUSSINES or POSSINUS, Pierre, a jesuit of Narbonne, born in 1609. He was an excellent Greek scholar, and in favour with many eminent persons of his time. He obtained a professorship at Toulouse, but in 1654 was appointed to a professorship at Rome, where he edited a Greek Catena on the first two Gospels. He executed a number of translations from mediaeval Greek authors especially, with notes which display considerable erudition. He died in 1686.—B. H. C.
POVIER, Germain, was born in 1724. He became a Benedictine of St. Maur, left the society in 1765, and rejoined it ten years afterwards. Little is recorded of him except that he was one of the compilers of the Art de Verifier les Dates, and that in conjunction with Precieux he was a continuator of the series of French and Gallic historians commenced by Bouquet. He was a member of the Institute, and died in 1803.—B. H. C.
POWELL, Baden, a British philosopher and man of science, was born at Stamford Hill, near London, on the 22d of August, 1796, and died in London on the 11th of June, 1860. He was educated at the university of Oxford, where he graduated with first-class mathematical honours in 1817. In 1820 he took orders in the Church of England, and in 1821 was appointed to the vicarage of Plumstead in Kent. In 1824 he became a follow of the Royal Society, and was often in after years a member of its council. He was a zealous and useful member of the British Association for the advancement of science. In 1827 he was appointed Savilian professor of geometry in the university of Oxford; and on different occasions afterwards he was one of the public examiners. He took an active part in promoting that revival of the study of physical science at Oxford, which has of late years been accomplished in the face of great difficulties, and which has contributed so much to the usefulness and honour of that university. He possessed great ability as a teacher, his style of lecturing being remarkably clear and impressive, and well calculated to make abstruse subjects easily intelligible; and the same style marks also his writings. His earliest separate works were a treatise on the "Differential and Integral Calculus," 1829-30; a treatise on the "Geometry of Curves and Curved Surfaces," 1830; and one on "Elementary Optics," 1833. These were followed in 1834 by a history of physical and mathematical science. His six lectures on the "Undulatory Theory of Light," 1841, are a striking example of his skill in making an abstruse subject popular. He wrote many detached scientific papers, most of which appeared in the Philosophical Transactions since 1825. He possessed much taste for and knowledge of the fine arts, especially painting and church music. He was the author of a long series of philosophical and theological works, written in his characteristically clear and impressive style, and containing views which have been much controverted, and which it would be out of place here to discuss. He was three times married, and left a numerous family.—W. J. M. R.
POWELL, David, D.D., a Welsh divine and antiquary, whose reputation for learning was very high with his contemporaries. He was born in Denbighshire about 1552, and at the age of sixteen was sent to Oxford. Entering into holy orders.
