Part 342 (1/2)
PAUL, the name of five popes: PAUL I., Pope from 757 to 797; PAUL II., pope from 1464 to 1471; PAUL III., Pope from 1534 to 1549, was zealous against the Protestant cause, excommunicated Henry VIII. in 1536, sanctioned the Jesuit order in 1540, convened and convoked the Council of Trent in 1545; PAUL IV., Pope from 1555 to 1559, originally an ascetic, was zealous for the best interests of the Church and public morality, established the Inquisition at Rome, and issued the first _Index Expurgatorius_; PAUL V., Pope from 1605 to 1621, his pontificate distinguished by protracted strife with the Venetian republic, arising out of the claim of the clergy for immunity from the civil tribunals, and which was brought to an end through the intervention of Henry IV. of France in 1607; it need not be added that he was zealous for orthodoxy, like his predecessors.
PAUL, ST., originally called Saul, the great Apostle of the Gentiles, born at Tarsus, in Cilicia, by birth a Jew and a Roman citizen; trained to severity by Gamaliel at Jerusalem in the Jewish faith, and for a time the bitter persecutor of the Christians, till, on his way to Damascus, in the prosecution of his hostile purposes, the overpowering conviction flashed upon him that he was fighting against the cause that, as a Jew, he should have embraced, and which he was at once smitten with zeal to further, as the one cause on which hinged the salvation, not of the Jews only, but of the whole world. He did more for the extension, if not the exposition, of the Christian faith at its first promulgation than any of the Apostles, and perhaps all of them together, and it is questionable if but for him it would have become, as it has become, the professed religion of the most civilised section of the world.
PAUL I., Czar of Russia, son of the Empress Catharine II., and her successor in 1796; was a despotic and arbitrary ruler; fought with the allies against France, but entered into an alliance with Napoleon in 1799; was murdered by certain of his n.o.bles as he was being forced to abdicate (1734-1801).
PAUL AND VIRGINIA, a celebrated novel by Saint-Pierre, written on the eve of the French Revolution, in which ”there rises melodiously, as it were, the wail of a moribund world: everywhere wholesome Nature in unequal conflict with diseased, perfidious art; cannot escape from it in the lowest hut, in the remotest island of the sea”; it records the fate of a child of nature corrupted by the false, artificial sentimentality that prevailed at the time among the upper cla.s.ses of France.
PAUL SAMOSATA, so called as born at Samosata, on the Euphrates, a heresiarch who denied the doctrine of three persons in one G.o.d, was bishop of Antioch, under the sway of Zen.o.bia, but deposed on her defeat by Aurelian in 272.
PAULDING, American writer, born in New York State; author of ”History of John Bull and Brother Jonathan,” and the novels ”The Dutchman's Fireside” and ”Westward Ho” (1779-1860).
PAULI, REINHOLD, German historian of England, born in Berlin; studied much in England, and became professor of History at Gottingen; wrote ”Life of King Alfred,” ”History of England from the Accession of Henry II. to the Death of Henry VII.,” ”Pictures of Old England,” and ”Simon de Montfort” (1823-1882).
PAULICIANS, a heretical sect founded by Constantine of Mana.n.a.lis about A.D. 660 in Armenia, and persisting in spite of severe persecution, were transferred to Thrace in 970, where remnants were found as late as the 13th century; they held that an evil spirit was the creator and G.o.d of this world, and that G.o.d was the ruler of the next; they refused to ascribe divinity to Christ, to wors.h.i.+p Mary, to reverence the cross, or observe the sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist; their name was derived from the special regard in which they held the writings of St. Paul, from which they professed to derive their tenets; they were charged with Manichaeism, but they indignantly repudiated the imputation.
PAULINE, Browning's first poem, written at 19 and published at 21, ”breathless, intense, melodramatic,” says Professor Saintsbury, ”eschewing incident, but delighting in a.n.a.lysis, which was to be one of the poet's points throughout, and ultimately to prevail over the others.”
PAULINUS, the first archbishop of York, sent in company with Augustin from Rome by Gregory to Britain in 601: laboured partly in Kent and partly in Northumbria, and persuaded Edwin of Northumbria to embrace Christianity in 629; _d_. 644.
PAULUS, HEINRICH, one of the founders of German rationalism, born near Stuttgart; held in succession sundry professors.h.i.+ps; denied the miraculous in the Scripture history, and invented ingenious rational explanations, now out of date (1761-1851).
PAUSANIAS, a famous Spartan general, the grandson of Leonidas, who, as commander-in-chief of the Greeks, overthrew the Persian army under Mardonius at Plataea in 479, but who, elated by this and other successes, aimed at the sovereignty of Greece by alliance with Xerxes, and being discovered, took refuge in a temple at Athens, where he was blockaded and starved to death in 477 B.C., his mother throwing the first stone of the pile that was cast up to bar his exit.
PAUSANIAS, a Greek traveller and topographer, lived during the reigns of Antoninus Pius and M. Aurelius; wrote an ”Itinerary of Greece”
in 10 books, the fruit of his own peregrinations, full of descriptions of great value both to the historian and the antiquary.
PAVIA (30), on the Ticino, in Lombardy, is an imposing ”city of a hundred towers,” with little industry or commerce; in its unfinished cathedral St. Augustine was buried; San Michele, where the early kings of Italy were crowned, dates from the 7th century; the University was founded by Charlemagne, and has now attached to it colleges for poor students, a library, museum, botanic garden, and school of art; stormed by Napoleon in 1796, Pavia was in Austrian possession from 1814 till its inclusion in the kingdom of Italy 1859.
PAXTON, SIR JOSEPH, architect of the Crystal Palace, born in Bedfords.h.i.+re, was originally a gardener in the service of the Duke of Devons.h.i.+re, and promoted to the charge of the duke's gardens at Chatsworth, where he displayed the architectural ability in the construction of large gla.s.s conservatories which developed itself in the construction of the Great Exhibition of 1851, for which he received the honour of knighthood (1803-1865).
PAYN, JAMES, English novelist, born at Cheltenham; edited _Chambers's Journal_ and _Cornhill Magazine_; his novels were numerous and of average quality, ”Lost Sir Ma.s.singberd” and ”By Proxy” among the most successful (1830-1899).
PAYNE, JOHN, actor and playwright, born in New York; resided in London from 1813 to 1832; most of his days a stranger in a strange land, immortalised himself as the author of ”Home, Sweet Home”; only his remains buried at home 30 years after his death at Tunis (1792-1852).
PEABODY, GEORGE, philanthropist, born at Danvers, now Peabody, in Ma.s.sachusetts, U.S.; made a large fortune as a dry-goods merchant in Baltimore and as a stockbroker as well in London; gave away for benevolent purposes in his lifetime a million and a half of money, and left to his relatives one million more; died in London; his body was laid beside his mother's at South Danvers, U.S. (1795-1869).