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LEFT POPE 309 POPOCATEPETL added a fourth book to his "Dunciad." Pope was vain and irascible, and seems to have been equally open to flattery and prone to resentment; yet he was kind- hearted and stanch to his friends, among whom he reckoned Swift, Arbuthnot, and Gay. His great weakness was a dis- position to artifice to acquire reputation and applause. As a poet, no English writer has carried further correctness of versification. A large number of his letters were published in his own life- time. He died in Twickenham, May 30, 1744. POPE, JOHN, an American military officer; born in Louisville, Ky., March 16, 1822; was graduated at the United States Military Academy in 1842, and entered the engineers. He served in Florida (1842-1844), and in the Mexi- can War, and was brevetted captain for gallantry. He was afterward employed in exploring and surveying in the West, till the outbreak of the Civil War, when he was appointed Brigadier-General of volunteers. In 1861 he drove the guerrillas out of Missouri; in 1862 he captured New Madrid in March, and was made Major-General, commanded the Army of the Mississippi in the opera- tions against Corinth, and was assigned to the command of the Army of Virginia, with the rank of Brigadier-General, U. S. A. For 15 days in August he faced Lee, but was defeated at the sec- ond battle of Bull Run, on the 29th and 30th. He then requested to be relieved, and was transferred to Minnesota, where he kept the Indians in check. He held Tarious commands till 1886, when he retired. In 1882 he became Major- General, U. S. A. Pope died in San- dusky, 0., Sept. 23, 1892. POPERINGHE, a town in West Flanders, Belgium, near the French fron- tier, 6 miles W. S. W. of Ypres. It has an ancient wall and mediaeval church, and its industries include the gathering of hops and the making of cloths. The town as a result of the World War was largely reduced to ruins, being the scene, along with Ypres, of some of the bloodiest fighting in the war. Pop. about 12,000. POPINJAY, a parrot; a figure of a bird put up as a mark for archers to shoot at ("papingo" being another Scotch form for this sense). The green wood- pecker is also sometimes called popin- jay. Also derisive term for a fop. POPISH PLOT, in English history, an alleged plot made known by Titus Gates in 1678. He asserted that two men had been told off to assassinate Charles II., that certain Roman Catholics whom he named had been appointed to all the high offices of the State, and that the extirpa- tion of Protestantism was intended. On the strength of his allegation, various persons, including Viscount Stafford, were executed. Gradually evidence arose that the whole story was a fabrication. On May 8, 1685, Gates, who had received a pension of $10,000 for his revelations, was convicted of perjury, heavily fined, pilloried, and publicly flogged. He sur- vived, making several attempts to ex- ploit new plots, but deservedly despised. Died in 1705. POPLAB, a genus of Salicacese. Cat- kins drooping, their scales usually jagged; disk cup-shaped, oblique, entire. Males, stamens 4 to 30; females, stigmas, two to four-cleft; capsule two-celled, loculicidal. Known species 18, from the N. temperate zone. Two, Popiilas alba, the great white poplar or abele, and P. tremula, the trembling poplar or aspen, are indigenous. P. nigra, the black pop- lar, is only naturalized. The first is a large tree with downy, but not viscous buds. It grows in moist places and mountain woods. The timber is white, soft, and used only for coarse work. The bark is said to be useful in strangury. For the second species, see Aspen. P. nigra has viscid buds, leaves rhombic deltoid, or suborbicular. It grows in moist places, on river banks, etc. The wood is light, and not very valuable. It is used for carving, or burnt for charcoal, and the bark em- ployed for tannin. P. monilifera is the black Italian poplar, P. fastigiata, the Lombardy poplar, and P. cayiadensis, the Canadian poplar. The buds of P. nigra, the Himalayan P. halsamifera, P. candi- eans, etc., are besmeared in winter with a resinous balsamic, bitter, aromatic exu- dation, called tacamahac, considered to be diuretic, and antiscorbutic. The bark of P. euphratica is given in India as a vermifuge. The poplar occurs in the Cretaceous rocks of North America, the Eocene of Bournemouth, and the Miocene of Continental Europe. POPLIN, a silk and worsted stuff, watered, figured, brocaded, or tissued. Originally an all-silk French goods. Irish poplins have a silk warp and worsted weft, and in the common grades cotton or flax is mixed with the silk. POPOCATEPETL ("smoking moun- tain"), a volcano about 40 miles S. E. of the City of Mexico. It rises in the form of a cone to the height of 17,784 feet above the sea-level. No eruption has been recorded since 1540; it still smokes, how- ever. It is often scaled and in and around its crater (5,165 feet in diameter,