PKE-RAPHAELITES. 364 PRESBYTERIANISM. conception as tlie chief feature of a work of art, and form as the chief vehicle of its expression, color being subsidiary. The leader and moving spirit of tlie school was Overbeck (q.v. ) ; other members were Cornelius, the brothers Schadow, Philip Veit, Schnorr von Carolsfeld, Fuhrich. and Steinle. They afterwards scattered throughout (Jermany, some, like Cornelius, relinquishing their tenets, but Overbeck remained at Rome, faithful to the end. Their art is characterized by a certain naivete, and is technically very primitive. The name is much more widely applied to the school which arose in England about the middle of the nineteenth century, and accomplished great results both in art and literature. The movement originated with a band of seven young men — Dante Gabriel Rossctti and his brother William Michael, .John Everett Jlillais, William Holman Hunt, Frederick George Stephens, .James Col- linson, and Thomas Woolner the sculptor. The Brotherhood was formed in the autunm of 184S, and its work really began with "The Eve of Saint Agnes," a picture by Hohnan Hunt, who was the first of them to realize the purity of work in the early Italian painters and to seek to rival their sincerity, though they owed much to the inllu- ence of an older man. Ford !Madox BroTi. For a time in 18.50 they published a periodical called The Germ, in which some of Rossetti's earliest poetical work and his fine prose study "Hand and Soul" first appeared. Like the German school, they were convinced that modern traditions had led painters away from the only true principle and the only worthy practice of their art. and that it was necessary to go back for inspiration to the work of the time when art had not ceased to be simple, sincere, and religious. Both in literature and in art. they wished to revert (in Mr. Watts-Dunton's phrase) from "the temper of imitation, prosaic acceptance, pseudo-classi- cism, and domestic materialism" to that of "won- der, reverence, and awe." Their official manifesto in The Germ declares their intention "to encour- age and enforce an entire adherence to the sim- plicity of nature, either in art or poetry." They were defended and warmly praised by Ruskin, who found in their art the modern incarnation of his theories; but by others they were held to have recurred "to a style of painting unadapted to our age, to an ignorance of technical knowledge, and to a religious feeling that could not be vol- untarily recalled in a period of different ten- dencies." A closer adherence to form followed in the work that felt the influence of the movement. In seeking truth of detail the ensemble was often lost : religious and mystic tendencies occasionally degenerated into afTectation which presented an easy mark for caricature. !Millais began to break away from the Brotherhood between 18.5.5 and 1857, but Hunt remained faithful, and Burne-Jones's work throughout showed a strong sympathy with the school. In his later life Rossetti threw off the trammels of the narrower Pre-Raphaelitism. while adhering to the mystical attitude. In poetry, the movement may really be considered as a recurrent phase of the wider Ro- mantic movement, whose teaching had been some- what obscured in the half-century since its proclamation in England. In its looking back to the iliddle Ages, it harmonized with the Oxford Movement of its own day, and with the Gothic revival of Pugin. Its mental attitude is magnifi- cently represented in the highly colored, imagina- tive 'painter's poetry' of Rossetti and in much of the work of William Morris and some of Swin- burne's. Consult: Destr^e, Les Preraphaelites (Brus- sels, 1894) ; Janson, "Deutsche Priiraphacliten," in Zeitschrift fur hildende Kunst {Leipzig, 1901) ; Wood, Dante Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelite Movement (New York, 1894) ; Bate, The English Pre-Raphaelite Painters. Their Associates and Successors (London, 1899) ; W. M. Rossetti (ed.) , Pre-Raphaelite Diaries and Letters (ib.. 1900) ; Holman Hunt, "The Pre-Raphaelite Brother- hood." in Contemporary Review (ib.. 1886) ; Xoble, "A Pre-Raphaelite Magazine," in The Son- net in Enr/land (ib., 1896) ; and see Rossetti, Daxte Gabriel; Romanticism. PEER ATI, pra'rou. A town of Moravia, Aus- tria, situated 40 miles northeast of Briinn (Map: Austria, E 2). It contains an ancient castle, a Gothic to«-n-halI, a Bohemian college, an agricul- tural and a trade school. There are considerable manufactures of textiles, also of sugar, hardware and agricultural machinery. Prerau was for- merly the chief seat of the Moravian Brethren. Population, in 1890, 12,955; in 1900, 16,727. PREROGATIVE. In law, a term most fre- quently employed to describe the rights and privi- leges of a sovereign or other person in a high otlieial position. It implies an authority or right in the sovereign, not controlled by any other power. For example, the right to treasure trove (q.v.) is a reyal prerogative, the King having a superior right to any of his subjects. Certain franchises are said to be 'branches' of royal pre- rogatives granted to subjects. The term "is some- times employed in the United States to denote the authority vested in a public official, but not in the same sense as it is used in the English law. Consult: Pollock and Maitland's History of the Enfilish Law; Blackstone's Commentaries. PRESBURG. A city of Hungary. See Pbess- BUEG. PRESBYOPIA. See Sight, Defects of. PRESBYTER (Lat. presbyter, from Gk. Trpes- PvTepos, pvesbyteros. comp. of rpea^is, presbys, old). In the most general meaning, one ad- vanced in years or rank. The term was used by the .Tews to designate the chief official of the synagogue or a member of the Sanhedrin, and was adopted in the Christian Church. See Bishop; Elder: Orders, Holy; Presbyteeiaxi.sm. PRESBYTERIANISM AND THE PRES- BYTERIAN CHXIRCHES. Presbyterianism is a system of Church government by presbyters, or elders. This fact distinguishes it from other forms of Church government, the papal, the epis- copal, and the congregational. "In the presby- terian system all ecclesiastical authority is iu the body of presbyters called by Christ, and or- dained by presbyters to rule over the Church. . . . The Presbyterian churches exalt the Scrip- tures above the Church, and urge that Christian men and Christian assemblies should wait upon God, and listen for the voice of His Spirit speak- ing infallibly in his Word." Calvin has been re- garded as the founder of Presbyterianism, and it is true that he was the first to organize the Reformed Church on a Presbyterian model; but it should be remembered that government by a
