he repaired to Rome, and afterwards returned to Spain, where he spent the rest of his life in religious exercises and retirement from the world. It was in his fifty-seventh year that he seems to have come to the resolution of renouncing earthly employments. The time of his death is unknown. The little that we know of his life is derived from a brief autobiography in verse written as an introduction to his works. His words have either been misunderstood in some cases; or conjectural meanings have been put upon them. His poems are the following—"Cathemerinon" (Καθημερινῶν, subaud. ὑμῶν), a collection of twelve hymns for dilferent hours of the day and special occasions; "Peristephanon liber" (περὶ στεφάνων), fourteen hymns in honour of so many saints who had received the crown of martyrdom; "Apotheosis" on the divinity of Christ, in opposition to various classes of Unitarians; "Hamartigenia," on the origin of sin and evil, against the Marcionites and Manichæans; "Psychomachia," representing the conflict of good and evil in the human soul; "Contra Symmachum libri duo:" the first book exposes idolatry, the second refutes the grounds of those who, like Symmachus, wished for its restoration; "Diptychon," outlines of Bible history. The authenticity of this poem, which is inferior to the others, is doubtful. The "Præfatio" gives an autobiography and catalogue of his works; and the "Epilogus" closes the list. His hymns are the best of his works, and give him a high rank among christian poets. They exhibit feeling, poetic inspiration, fire, and are expressed in good language. Horace was evidently the model whom Prudentius followed; but he uses many antique and barbarous forms borrowed from ecclesiastical Latin, so that his language is in some respects inferior to that of his predecessors, Juvencus and Victorinus. Doubtless his endeavour to avoid heathen admixtures injured his style. Bentley hyperbolically calls him the christian Virgil and Horace. The edition of his works by Obbarius, Tübingen, 8vo, 1845, is the most convenient.—S. D.
PRUDHOMME, Louis Marie, journalist, born at Lyons in 1752. His original occupation was that of a bookseller. The stirring epoch of the Revolution entirely engrossed his mind, and furnished employment for his pen. In the ten years preceding that event, he published about fifteen hundred pamphlets. After virulently assailing Louis XVI., he turned his pen against the tyrant Robespierre. For this he was arrested, but succeeded in escaping from the capital, to which he did not again return till after Robespierre's death. He wrote a "History of the Crimes committed during the Revolution;" a "Universal History;" and a "Biography of Remarkable Women." He died in 1830.—W. J. P.
PRUDHON, Pierre Paul, a distinguished French painter, was born at Clugny in Bourgogne, 6th April, 1760. He was a pupil of F. Desvoges, and went as royal pensioner to Rome, where he studied hard and formed a close friendship with Canova. Returning to France in 1789 he was for years constrained to paint portraits in miniature and crayons. But he was steadily maturing his powers, and in 1808 he sent to the Salon his allegory of "Justice and Vengeance pursuing Crime," a work which at once made him famous, and which many French critics still consider his masterpiece. It is now in the Louvre. Prudhon painted subsequently a large number of historical and religious pieces for successive governments, retaining his popularity to the last. He was elected a member of the Institute (Académie des Beaux-Arts) in 1816, and received the cross of the legion of honour. His manner was very different from that of David, at that time the supreme ruler in French art, and Prudhon's example no doubt hastened the reaction from the frigid classicism of his rival. Prudhon's style was soft and graceful rather than severe, and he was especially admired for his colour, being commonly called the French Correggio. He painted numerous religious subjects for churches, including a large "Crucifixion," an "Assumption of the Virgin," &c.; a great many mythological subjects, as "Venus and Adonis," "Psyche and the Zephyrs," and the like, as well as subjects from ancient and modern history, and portraits. Prudhon died February 16, 1823.—J. T—e.
PRYNNE, William, an English lawyer and antiquarian, who figured conspicuously in the reign of Charles I. and during the Commonwealth, was born at Swainswick in Somersetshire in 1600. After graduating at Oxford in 1620 he studied at Lincoln's inn and became a barrister, and subsequently bencher and reader of that society. He adopted the puritan doctrines, which he advocated with greater zeal than discretion, and began in 1627 to attack the prevailing abuses of the day, as well as the Arminianism and pretensions of Laud and the high church clergy. In 1632 he published his "Histriomastix, or Player's Scourge," in which he denounced with great virulence theatrical exhibitions, masques, and other similar entertainments. This book gave great offence to the court; and the author, at the instance of Laud, was prosecuted before the star-chamber, sentenced to pay a fine of £5000, to stand twice in the pillory, to l ose his ears, to have his book burnt by the common hangman, to be expelled from the Society of Lincoln's inn and from the university of Oxford, and to be imprisoned for life. This atrocious sentence was executed in all its details, but it failed to crush the indomitable spirit of Prynne. He contrived during his imprisonment to publish severe reflections against the bishops; and in 1637 a pamphlet, entitled "News from Ipswich," roused afresh the indignation of Laud, and drew down upon Prynne again the vengeance of the star-chamber. He was once more condemned to pay another fine of £5000, to stand in the pillory, to have the stumps of his ears cut off, and be branded on both cheeks S. L. (Seditious Libeller). This sentence was strictly carried out, and the unhappy writer was imprisoned first in Caernarvon, and afterwards in Mount Orgueil castle in the island of Jersey. There he remained until November, 1640, when he was released by an order from the house of commons, and the sentences against him were declared to be contrary to law. He was soon after elected member for Newport in Cornwall, and was made a bencher in Lincoln's inn. In 1647 he was chosen recorder for Bath. He took a prominent part in parliament against the hierarchy, and was one of the managers of the impeachment against Laud, He was a zealous supporter of the presbyterian cause, and strenuously opposed the independent and republican party when they began to obtain the ascendancy. He was in consequence ejected from the house, along with the leading presbyterians, by the operation of "Pride's Purge," in December, 1648. His writings against Cromwell and his party caused him to be imprisoned in 1650, and two years later to be deprived of his office of recorder for Bath. In 1660 he returned to his seat along with the other excluded members, and took an active part in the restoration of the royal family. He was elected member for Bath in the healing parliament of 1660, was restored to his office of recorder, made one of the commissioners for appeals, and appointed keeper of the records in the Tower, an office for which he was eminently qualified. He died in October, 1669. Prynne was a laborious and voluminous writer. His works amount to no less than forty volumes. The most valuable of these are his "Records of the Tower," in 3 vols., and his "Parliamentary Writs," in 4 vols. He was a man of considerable ability, extensive learning, and indefatigable industry, but very rash, violent, and injudicious.—J. T.
PSALMANAZAR, George, the fictitious name of a remarkable literary impostor, who made a considerable noise about the beginning of the last century, but whose real name and family are unknown. He is believed to have been born in France about 1679, and is said to have been educated, first in a free school, and afterwards in a college of Jesuits. He held for some time the situation of tutor to a young gentleman, but afterwards adopted a wandering unsettled kind of life. He first gave out that he was of Irish origin, and was going on a pilgrimage to Rome, having, the better to carry out this assumed character, stolen a pilgrim's staff and cloak from a chapel. He subsequently assumed various characters in succession; gave himself out at one time for a Japanese, at another for a native of the island of Formosa; to some persons he professed to be a convert to christianity, to others to be still a heathen. He travelled over a considerable portion of the continent, and was by turns a soldier, a beggar, a menial servant, and a teacher. At Sluys he was introduced by Brigadier Lauder to one Innes, a chaplain in a Scotch regiment, who resolved to carry him over to England. Here Psalmanazar was patronized by the bishop of London, and a large circle of influential friends, who placed implicit confidence in his statements. He published a fabulous account of the island of Formosa; and in order to give colour to his pretensions he formed a new character and language, planned a new religion, and a division of the year into twenty months. At length, when about thirty-two years of age, he was brought under the influence of religious convictions, his character underwent a great change; he confessed his imposture and reformed his conduct. He applied himself diligently to literary pursuits by which he acquired considerable reputation, and earned a comfortable subsistence. He died in London in 1763 in the eighty-fourth year of his age. He
