partes æquales, or equal parts of the ingredients; P. P. signifies pulvis patrum, i. e. the Jesuits-powder; and ppt. præparatus, prepared.

PACE, a measure taken from the space between the two feet of a man, in walking; usually reckoned two feet and an half, and in some men a yard or three feet. See MEASURE.

The geometrical pace is five feet; and 60,000 such paces make one degree of the equator.

PACKERS, persons whose employment it is to pack up all goods intended for exportation; which they do for the great trading companies and merchants of London, and are answerable if the goods receive any damage through bad package.

PACO, a species of the Camelus, found in Peru.

PÆDERIA, in botany, a genus of the Pentandria Monogynia class and order, Natural order of Contortæ, Rubiacea, Jussieu. Essential character: contorted; berry void, brittle, two-seeded; style bifid. There are two species, viz. P. fœtida, and P. fragrans, the former is a native of the East Indies, and the latter of the island of Mauritius.

PÆDEROTA, in botany, a genus of the Diandria Monogynia class and order. Natural order of Personatæ. Scrophularia, Jussieu. Essential character: corolla fourcleft; calyx five-parted; capsule twocelled. There are three species.

PEONIA, in botany, peony, a genus of the Polyandria Digynia class and order. Natural order of Multisilique. Ranunculaceæ, Jussieu. Essential character; calyx five-leaved; petals five; styles none; cap. sule many-seeded. There are five species, of which P. albiflora, white-flowered peony, has the root composed of a few cylindrical or fusiform tubers, united at top; stem, from a radical leafless sheath, two feet in height, slender, round; leaves alternate on long petioles; leaflets three-parted; the whole plant is very smooth and shining; the calyx is raised above the floral leaf on a short thick peduncle; petals eight, very large, milk white, oval, concave, stamens about one hundred and fifty, with the filaments as well as anthers yellow; within the stamens is a fungose, subcontinuous, lobed crown, more slender than in its congeners; the germs are smooth, conical, purple at the tip; stigma compressed into a comb or crest, suborbicular, hooked; seeds when ripe of a yellowish testaceous colour. It is a na

tive of Siberia; it is well known among the Daurians and Mongols on account of the root, which they boil in their broth; the seeds they grind to put into their tea.

PAGANISM, the religion of the Heathen nations, in which the Deity is represented under various forms, and by all kinds of images, or idols; it is therefore called idolatry, or image worship. The theology of the Pagans was of three sorts, viz. fabulous, natural, and political or civil. The first treats of the genealogy, worship, and attributes of their deities; who were, for the most part, the offspring of the imagination of poets, painters, and statuaries. To their gods were given different names and oppo site attributes, ascribing to them every spe cies of vice, as well as to some of them every virtue. There is, however, in the delightful fictions of Homer and Hesiod, much that is entertaining, curious, and even useful. The flowers of the garden and the field, whose beauties we so much admire, were once thought to be produced by the tears of Aurora, the goddess of the morning, whose rose-coloured fingers open the gates of the east, pour the dew upon the earth, and make the flowers grow. When the leaves were agitated, or the long grass of the meadows performed its graceful undulations, all was put in motion by the breath of Zephyrus, the god of the west-wind, The murmurs of the waters were the sighs of the Naïades; little deities who pre sided over rivers, springs, wells, and fountains. A god impels the wind; a god pours out the rivers; grapes are the gift of Bacchus ; Ceres presides over the harvest; orchards are the care of Pomona. Does a shepherd sound his reed on the summit of a mountain, it is Pan, who, with his pastoral pipe, returns the amorous lay. When the sportsman's horn rouses the attentive ear, it is Diana, armed with her bow and quiver, and more nimble than the stag that she pursues, who takes the diversion of the chace. The sun is a god, riding on a car of fire, diffusing his light through the world; the stars are so many divinities; who measure with their beams the regular progress of fire; the moon presides over the silence of the night, and consoles the world for the absence of her brother. Neptune reigns in the sea, surrounded by the Nereides, who dance to the joyous shells of the Tritons. In the highest heaven is seated Jupiter, the master and father of men and gods. Under his feet roll the thunders, forged by the Cyclops in the caverns of Etna; his smile

rejoices nature, and his nod shakes the foundation of Olympus. Surrounding the throne of their Sovereign, the other divinities quaff nectar from a cup, presented them by the young and beautiful Hebe. In the middle of the great circle shines, with distinguished lustre, the unrivalled beauty of Venus, alone adorned with a splendid girdle, in which the graces and sports for ever play; and in her hand is a smiling boy, whose power is universally acknowledged by heaven and earth. Music, poetry, dancing, and the liberal arts, are all inspired by one or other of the nine muses; while the votaries of martial glory derive their courage and success from Mars, the god of battles. Such is a general outline of the pleasing and inoffensive part of the fa bulous theology of the Pagan world. On the other hand, as we have already intimated, many of the gods of the ancients possessed attributes at once disgraceful to, and unworthy of deity, and hurtful to the interests of morality and human happiness. Jupiter himself set an example of lust; and Bacchus was worshipped with cruel and obscene revellings.

Many, however, of the heathen writers condemned, this part of their theology; amongst which are Sanchoniatho, the Phonician; and among the Greeks, Orpheus, Hesiod, and Pherecyde.

The natural theology of the Pagans was studied and taught by the philosophers, who rejected the multiplicity of gods introduced by the poets, and brought their theology to a more rational form. Some of them seem to have possessed considerable knowledge respecting the unity of the Supreme Deity: yet even Socrates, the best man and wisest of the philosophers of the Pagan world, so far yielded to the prejudices and practices of the age in which he lived, as to order his friends, just before his death, to sacrifice a cock to Esculapius, the god of physic.

The political or civil theology of the Pagans was instituted by legislators, statesmen, and politicians. This chiefly respected their temples, altars, sacrifices, and rites of worship, and was properly their idolatory; the care of which belonged to the priests, who were servants of the state. These ceremonies, &c. were enjoined the commonalty to keep them in subjection to the civil power. Such was the religion of the greater part of the world before the promulgation of Christianity; and such still, in some form or other, is the religion of those parts of the world, containing a population

of about 420 millions of souls; or above one-half of the inhabitants of the whole earth, where the gospel is not preached, either in its purity, or as corrupted by the doctrines of Mahomet. The Missionaries employed for the conversion of the heathen, though very zealous and very numerous, have hitherto made comparatively little progress. The Foreign and British Bible Society may possibly have some beneficial effects in enlightening the darkness of the pagan world; but, we are persuaded, nothing but conquest and civilization, short of miracle itself, will ever prove effectual in the extirpation of heathenism, and the final establishment of Christianity.

PAGE, a youth of state retained in the family of a prince or great personage, as an honourable servant, to attend in visits of ceremony, do messages, bear up trains, robes, &c. and at the same time to have a genteel education, and learn his exercises. The pages in the King's houshold are various, and have various offices assigned them, as pages of honour, pages of the presence chamber, pages of the back stairs, &c.

PAGEANT, a triumphal car, chariot, arch, or other like pompous decoration, variously adorned with colours, flags, &c. carried about in public shews, processions, &c.

PAGOD, or PAGODA, a name whereby the East Indians call the temple in which they worship their gods. Before they build a pagod, they consecrate the ground as fol lows: after having inclosed it with boards or palisadoes, when the grass is grown on the ground they turn an ash coloured cow into it, who stays there a whole day and night; and as cow-dung is thought by the Indians to be of a very sacred nature, they search for this sacred deposit, and having found it, they dig there a deep pit, into which they put a marble-pillar, rising considerably above the surface of the earth. On this pillar they place the image of the god to whom the pagod is to be consecrated. After this the pagod is built round the pit, in which the pillar is fixed. The pa god usually consists of three parts, the first is a vaulted roof supported on stone or marble columns. It is adorned with images, and, being open, all persons without distinction are allowed to enter it: the second part is filled with grotesque and monstrous figures, and no body is allowed to enter it but the bramins themselves: the third is a kind of chancel, in which the statue of the deity is placed: it is shut up with a very

strong gate. This word is sometimes used for the idol, as well as for the temple.

PAGOD, or PAGODA, is also the name of a gold and silver coin, current in several parts of the East Indies.

PAIN, is defined to be an uneasy sensation arising from a sudden and violent solution of the continuity, or some other accident in the nerves, membranes, vessels, muscles, &c. of the body; or, according to some, it consists in a motion of the organs of sense; and, according to others, it is an emotion of the soul occasioned by these

organs.

PAINTING. The art of painting may not improperly be defined, a mode of con veying ideas to the mind by means of a representation of the visible parts of nature. It is a language by which, though all things cannot, many at least may be expressed, in a stronger and clearer manner than can be effected by any other; nay, it is, to its extent, a universal language; though it is only in proportion as we are accustomed to read it that we can hope to acquire ideas through its means.

The particular education of our senses or organs is undoubtedly the only mode by which those senses can be rendered serviceable to us in their full extent; for although, in their natural and uncultivated state, they are enabled to present us with tolerably clear and distinct ideas of things of a simple kind, or which differ considerably from each other; it is far otherwise when we expect from them just ideas of things complicated, or of such as differ from each other by small, nay almost imperceptible gradations. The untutored eye readily distinguishes black from white, red from blue, and purple from green; but is unable to detect the delicate transitions from one shade to another of the same colour, and still less the nicer variations of combined and complex colours.

The quickest of all operations is perhaps that of sight, and in one moment we are enabled to see many objects; but we cannot, as Leonardo da Vinci properly observes, distinguish and understand clearly more than one at a time. Upon the first sight of a page of a written or a printed book, though we observe it to be full of words, we do not discover the sense contained. No! to understand, we are obliged to read it; and in case the subject be abstruse, and our comprehensions dull, it may be necessary to peruse it two or three times before the whole sense be clearly understood by us; some

there may be who never will comprehend it. The situation of that man who, from long babit, reads with facility and quickness, is likewise far removed from that of the beginner, who having little practice, can only read slowly and with difficulty.

We have judged it necessary to premise these few observations, in hopes to correct a mistaken but prevalent notion, that although a thorough conversance with painting is required ere a person be adequate to decide discreetly as to the executive parts of a work of art, to distinguish the copy from the original, or the pencils of the different masters; every man is intuitively enabled to enjoy the effect of the whole, to enter into the expression and feeling of the piece, and, in short, to judge rightly between a bad picture and a good one. Nay, a moment is sufficient for one of these selfdubbed critics to pass an irrevocable sentence on the most extensive and studied composition.

In treating the subject before us, we shall not by a slow and tedious process attempt to conduct the student of painting through the long and rugged path by which alone even a moderate degree of excellence may be attained; this would be like commencing a treatise on rhetoric with the minutiæ of orthography and grammar. We shall rather, by a short inquiry into the funda; mental principles of the art, and a reference to the example of the greatest masters, draw his attention to the proper application of that mechanical skill of which we suppose him already possessed.

Invention, composition, design, expres. sion, chiara obscura, and colouring, may perhaps not improperly be termed the great component parts of painting, unless indeed it be insisted that invention is rather the parent and director of the others to the proper objects of their attainment.

We have defined painting to be a mode of communicating ideas to the mind, by means of a representation of the visible parts of nature; and we have adopted this mode of expression, because the art can hardly be said to be confined to the mere representation of visible objects, since by delineating outward demonstrations it is enabled to convey the ideas of internal affections and mental actions. It will necessarily follow that those subjects are the most immediately within the province of our art, whose essential qualities are as it were contained in the visible parts of things, or most capable of being expressed by ob

jects of sight; and this, though a truism, we have thought it necessary to state, as experience every day shews, that it is not sufficiently attended to. By the essential qualities of a subject, we must be understood to mean those which give it its interest.

The only means by which the painter can communicate his ideas to the spectator, or in other words, tell his story, are combinations of figures and other visible objects, the representation of gesture and the expression of countenance.

As the powers of writing, in the way of narrative, are such as to enable it to convey to the reader a just idea of a succession of transactions or events; whereas it cannot by the most laboured description give us any other than a confused or erroneous notion of the situation of a building, the windings of a river, the forms of a mountain, or the beauty and expression of a countenance; so painting, inasmuch as it is in competent to relate the conspiracy, or record the oration, is proportionably rich in its means of description. As description is the most arduous task of language, so narration is the great difficulty of painting; a difficulty however not always insurmountable to the artist, who to a competent knowledge and practice in the several component parts of bis art, adds that of judgment in the choice of his subject, as will presently appear.

In a picture, the artist must necessarily choose one point of time for his representa tion, but the usual doctrine that a picture can absolutely express no more than this one moment of the story, requires some illustration, as otherwise the inconsiderate might naturally bé led to underrate the powers of communication given to our art. The truth we believe is, that though a picture must represent one moment of time only, yet in that representation, the memorial, as it were, of past moments, may be recorded, and the idea of future ones clearly anticipated; and though this doctrine may, upon first sight, appear opposed to generally established opinion, a little reflection will, we are assured, convince any one of its truth.

It will require very little argument to shew, that many of the bodily actions of men do indicate, and, under particular circumstances, demonstrate certain other actions to have taken place previously; which is certainly expressing the past in the present; nor will it be more difficult to find instances of a present action denoting some future one; that is, expressing the future in the

present. A figure walking, or running, denotes a past, a present, and a future action. The sword of the soldier drawn and lifted up over the neck of the beautiful St. Catharine, denotes a future act or event; that of her head being severed from her body; the hardened executioner forcing his sword into the scabbard, after having performed his office, as clearly-shews what has gone before.

Two things should concur to render a story eminently eligible for painting. First, the incident or act to be represented should be of an unequivocal nature; such as, when represented, can leave no doubt on the mind of the observer as to its meaning; and secondly, either the cause of the act, or its probable consequence, or result, should be such as is capable of being expressed by objects in the picture; but when both the cause or the end proposed in the act represented, and the consequence of that act, can be made evident to us in a picture, such a picture is a narration, becomes truly a dumb poesy, and creates a most lively interest in our minds, possessing as it does, those properties which, as Aristostle observes, are necessary to the perfection of a drama; a beginning, a middle, and an end.

When we behold a representation of the Corinthian maid tracing the shadow of her favoured youth on the wall, love, the cause of the action, is rendered apparent by the endearments attending it: the consequence, which we are told was the invention of painting, is not evident to one uninformed of the tradition. Not so in Mr. Fuseli's pathetic composition of Paolo and Francesca, from Dante. Here we are at a loss as to no one of these particulars; the picture in every respect explaining itself with as much force, and as unequivocally as the poem. Love urges the stolen kiss and guilty dalliance, and the consequence is as evidently the destruction of the lovers by the aveng ing and uplifted hand of the insulted husband.

Invention, in painting, consists principally in three things: first, the choice of a subject properly within the scope of the art; secondly, the seizure of the most striking and energetic moment of time for representation; and lastly, the discovery and selection of such objects, and such probable incidental circumstances, as, combined together, may best tend to develope the story, or augment the interest of the piece. The cartoons of Raffaele, at Hampton Court, furnish us with an example of genius and