Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/467

 P E A P E A 445 which not only made the voyage round the Cape success fully, but proved very useful in the Chinese war. He also framed instructions for the Euphrates expedition, pro nounced by General Chesney to be models of sagacity. In 1836 he succeeded Mill as chief examiner, and in 1856 he retired upon a pension. During his later years he contributed several papers to Eraser s Magazine, including reminiscences of Shelley. He also wrote in the same magazine his last novel, Gryll Grange (1860), inferior to his earlier writings in humour and vigour, but still a surprising effort for a man of his age. He died 23d January 1866 at Lower Halliford, near Chertsey, Avhere, so far as his London occupations would allow him, he had resided for more than forty years. Peacock s position in English literature is unique. There was nothing like his type of novel before his time ; though there might have been if it had occurred to Swift to invent a story as a vehicle for the dialogue of his Polite Conversa tion. But, while Swift s interlocutors represent ordinary types, Peacock s are highly exceptional ; while the humour of the former consists in their stereotyped conventionality or unconscious folly, the talk in Peacock s novels is brilliant ; and, while Swift s characters utter proverbs, Peacock s are equipped from the author s own stores of humorous observa tion or reflexion. He speaks as well in his own person as through his puppets ; and perhaps no writer since Pope has enriched English literature with such an abundance of quotable things. This pithy wit and sense, combined with remarkable grace and accuracy of natural description, atone for the primitive simplicity of plot and character. There is just enough of both to keep the story going, and the author s plan required no more. Of his seven fictions, Nightmare Abbey and Crotchet Castle are perhaps on the whole the best, the former displaying the most vis comica of situation, the latter the fullest maturity of intellectual power, and the most skilful grouping of the motley crowd of &quot; perf ectibilians, deteriorationists, statu-quo-ites, phreno logists, transcendentalists, political economists, theorists in all sciences, projectors in all arts, morbid visionaries, romantic enthusiasts, lovers of music, lovers of the pictur esque, and lovers of good dinners,&quot; who constitute the dramatis personse, of that comedy in narrative, the Pea- cockian novel. Maid Marian and The Misfortunes of Elphin are hardly less entertaining, but are somewhat cramped by the absence of portraiture from the life and the necessity for historical colouring. Both contain de scriptive passages of extraordinary beauty. Melincourt is a comparative failure, the excellent idea of an orang outang mimicking humanity being insufficient as the sole groundwork of a novel. Headlong Hall, though more than foreshadowing the author s subsequent excellence, is marred by a certain bookish awkwardness characteristic of the recluse student, which reappears in Gryll Grange as the pedantry of an old-fashioned scholar, whose likes and dislikes have become inveterate and whose sceptical liberalism, always rather inspired by hatred of cant than enthusiasm for progress, has petrified into only too earnest conservatism. Pianos and perspective equally with com petitive examinations and &quot; panto-pragmatism &quot; are the objects of the writer s distaste, and for the first time in his career we feel inclined to laugh at him, being no longer able to laugh with him. The book s quaint resolute paganism, however, is very refreshing in an age eaten up with introspection; it is the kindliest of Peacock s writings, and contains the most beautiful of his poems, &quot; Years Ago,&quot; the reminiscence of an early attachment. In general the ballads and songs interspersed through his tales are models of exact and melodious diction, and instinct with true feeling. His more ambitious poems are worth little, except Bhododaphne, attractive as a story and perfect as a composition, but destitute of genuine poetical inspiration. His critical and miscellaneous writings are always interest ing, especially the restorations of lost classical plays in the Horse, Dramaticge, but the only one of great mark is the witty and crushing exposure in the Westminster Review of Moore s ignorance of the manners and belief he has ven tured to portray in his Epicurean. Peacock resented the misrepresentation of his favourite sect, the good and ill of whose tenets were fairly represented in his own person. Somewhat sluggish and self-indulgent, incapable of enthu siasm or self-sacrifice, he yet possessed a deep undemon strative kindliness of nature ; he could not bear to see any one near him unhappy or uncomfortable ; and his sym pathy, no less than his genial humour, gained him the attachment of children, dependants, and friends. His feelings were steady rather than acute ; he retained throughout life with touching fidelity the memory of an early affection. In official life he was upright and conscien tious ; his judgment was shrewd and robust, and the quaint crotchets and prejudices which contrasted so curiously with his usual sagacity were in general the exaggeration of jsound ideas held with undue exclusiveness. As a candidate for literary immortality he should be safe. The same causes which restrict his popularity ensure his perma nence. His novels depend but slightly on temporary phases of manners, but are vitally associated with standard literature, and with general tendencies innate in the human mind. Neither his intellectual liberalism nor his constitu tional conservatism will ever be out of date ; and what Shelley justly termed &quot;the lightness, strength, and chastity&quot; of his diction secures him an honourable rank among those English writers whose claims to remembrance depend not only upon matter but upon style. Peacock s works were collected, though not completely, and pub lished in three volumes in 1875, at the expense of his friend and former protege, Sir Henry Cole, with an excellent memoir by his grand-daughter Mrs Clarke, and a critical essay by Lord Houghton. Other criticisms have been written, by Mr Spedding in the Edin burgh Review and by James Hannay in the North British Review. For an interesting personal notice, see A Poet s Sketch Book, by R. V. Buchanan, 1884. (R. G.) PEAR (Pyrus communis). The pear has essentially the same floral structure as the apple. In both cases the so- called fruit is composed of the flower-tube or upper end of the flower-stalk greatly dilated, and enclosing within its cellular flesh the five cartilaginous carpels which constitute the &quot; core &quot; and are really the true fruit. From the upper rim of the flower-tube or receptacle are given off the five sepals, the five petals, and the very numerous stamens. The form of the pear and of the apple respectively, although usually characteristic enough, is not by itself sufficient to distinguish them, for there are pears which cannot by form alone be distinguished from apples, and apples which cannot by superficial appearance be recognized from pears. The main distinction is the occurrence in the tissue of the fruit, or beneath the rind, of clusters of cells, filled with hard woody deposit in the case of the pear, constituting the &quot;grit,&quot; while in the apple no such formation of woody cells takes place. The appearance of the tree the bark, the foliage, the flowers is, however, usually quite char acteristic in the two species. Cultivated pears, whose number is enormous, are without doubt derived from one or two wild species widely distributed throughout Europe and western Asia, and sometimes forming part of the natural vegetation of the forests. In England, where the pear is sometimes considered wild, there is always the doubt that it may not really be so, but the produce of some seed of a cultivated tree deposited by birds or other wise, which has degenerated into the wild spine-bearing tree known as Pyrus communis. The cultivation of the pear extends to the remotest