Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/117

Rh P I N P I N 107 The Carnation and Picotee are modifications of Dianthus Caryophyllus, the Clove Pink, a species with smooth edges to the leaf. This is a native of Europe, growing on rocks in the south, but in the north usually found on old walls. Its occurrence in England on some of the old Norman castles, as at Rochester, is supposed by Canon Ellacombe to indicate its introduction by the Normans ; in any case the plant grows in similar situations in Normandy. The original species has &quot; self &quot;-coloured flowers, that is, flowers of one hue, generally some shade of pink, but the varia tions in gardens are infinite. The carnation includes those flowers which are streaked or striped lengthwise the picotees are those in which the petals have a narrow band of colour along the edge, the remainder of the petal being free from stripes or blotches. These by the old writers were called &quot; gillyflowers&quot; (see vol. x. p. 601). The Sweet William of gardens is a product from Dianthus larbatus ; the Indian Pink comes from D. sinensis, of which D. Heddewigii is a variety ; the Alpine Pink, D. alpinus, is a very lovely plant for the rockery; and there are many hybrid and other varieties met with in gardens, for an account of which reference must be made to treatises on horticulture. PINKERTON, JOHN (1758-1826), archaeologist, numis matist, historian, geographer, and miscellaneous writer in prose and verse, was born at Edinburgh, February 17, 1758. After a brief education at Lanark he was articled as a law clerk in Edinburgh, his earliest work, printed during his clerkship, being an Elegy on Craigmillar Castle (1776). In 1780 he removed to London to devote himself to literary work, publishing in 1781 a volume of Rimes of no great merit, and a professed collection of Scottish Traffic Ballads. These were followed in 1782 -by Two Dithyrambic Odes on Enthusiasm and Laughter, and by a series of Tales in Verse. Under the title of Select Scottish Ballads he reissued in 1783 his tragic ballads, with a supplement comprising Ballads of the Comic Kind, a collection which obtained for him the not wholly appro priate title of &quot; the second Chatterton.&quot; An Essay on Medals in 1784 won him a considerable reputation, which was in some respects unpleasantly maintained by his bold but eccentric Letters on Literature published in 1785 under the pseudonym of Robert Heron a temporary adoption of his mother s surname. In the following year he edited the Ancient Scottish Poems from the MS. Collec tions of Sir Richard Maitland of Lethington, a genuine reproduction, though his confession in the preface oi forgery in the previous collections published by him brought groundless suspicion upon it. It was succeedec in 1787 by a compilation, under the new pseudonym oJ Bennet, entitled the Treasury of Wit, and by his first important historical work, the Dissertation on the Origin and Progress of the Scythians or Goths, to which Gibbon professed himself indebted. Turning his attention to hagiology, Pinkerton next collected and printed in 178 certain Vitas Sanctorum Scotise, and, a little later, publishec his Enquiry into the History of Scotland preceding th Reign of Malcolm III., in which he hoped to settle the ancient history of his country on the solid footing of facts and authorities and &quot; leave nothing in, the ink horn.&quot; In many quarters his attitude towards the Highlanders excited &quot;violent disgust,&quot; but the Enquiry was twice reprinted, in 1794 and 1814, and is still of value &quot;for the documents embodied in it. His edition of BarbourV Bruce and a Medallic History of England to the Revolution appeared in 1790 ; a collection of Scottish Poems reprintet from scarce Editions in 1792 ; and a series of biographica sketches, the Iconografthia Scotica, in the years 1795-97 In the last-mentioned year he published a History oj Scotland from the Accession of the House of Stuart to tha -&amp;gt;f Mary, containing valuable material, but almost entirely devoid of literary finish. A new biographical collection, succeeded after a short interval by a Modern Geography digested on a Neiv Plan (1802 ; enlarged, 1807). About this time he left London for Paris, where he chiefly resided until his death on May 10, 1826. His remaining publica tions were the Recollections of Paris in the years 1802-3- 4-5 (1806); a very useful General Collection of Voyages and Travels (1808-1813); a New Modern Atlas (1809-15); and his Petrology (1811). An unsuccessful tragedy by liim was performed at Edinburgh in 1813. Pinkerton possessed an exceedingly vigorous and acute mind, but very lacking in high constructive power ; and, as he was less patient in the formation of opinion than in research, his best work is marred by imperfect judgments crudely and obstinately asserted. At the same time his writings take no mean rank in the advance towards a scientific treatment of history. Walpole, notes of whose conversations were published at his death by Pinkerton under the title of Walpoliana, regarded his understanding as &quot;one of the strongest, most ?nanly, and clearest he ever knew;&quot; and Gibbon not only praised his faculty of persistent application as herculean and heroic, but wished to secure his co-operation in a scheme for organizing the materials of early English history. The final verdict upon his work must be that of the Earl of Buchan, who endorsed Pinkcrton s statement that he was &quot; a homo umbratilis, of a hypochondriac unsocial disposition,&quot; with the comment &quot; se ipsc dixit : it is his best apology ; yet undoubtedly he has been a benefactor to literature. &quot; PINSK, a district town of the government of Minsk, Russia, is situated in a marshy region at the confluence of the Strumen and Pina rivers, 172 miles to the south-west of Minsk. It has a lyceum, several primary schools, and a great number of Jewish schools. The town is almost entirely built of wood, and has a poor appearance. The population (13,000 in 1865) was in 1884 22,950, more than four-fifths of whom are Jews, who live almost exclusively on trade. This development of trade in a town situated at a distance from all railways (the nearest, that from Moscow to Warsaw, being 60 miles off) is due to the navigable river Pina, which connects it with the fertile regions on the Dnieper, and, by means of the Dnieper-and- Bug Canal, with Poland and Prussia, while the canal of Oginsky connects it with the basin of the Niemen. The merchandise brought from the Dnieper is unshipped at Pinsk, and sent west or north-west on smaller vessels. Pinsk (Pinesk) is first mentioned in Russian annals in 1097 as a town belonging to Sviatopolk, prince of Kieff. In 1132 it formed part of the Minsk principality, and it often changed its rulers subsequently. After the Mongol invasion it became the chief town of a separate principality, and continued to be so until the end of the 13th century. In 1320 it was annexed to Lithuania ; and in 1569, after the union of Lithuania with Poland, it was recognized as chief town of the province of Brest. During the rebellion of Bogdan Khmelnitzky (1640), as it had fallen into the hands of the Cossacks, the Poles took it by assaulr, destroying 14,000 persons and burning 5000 houses. Eight years later the town was burned again by the Russians. Charles XII. took it in 1706, and when compelled to quit, burned the palace of Prince Wisznewecki, and the town with its suburbs. Pinsk was annexed to Russia in 1795. PINTO, FERNAO MENDES (1509(?)-1583), a noted Portuguese adventurer, was born in 1509 or 1510 at Montemor-o-Velho, near Coimbra, and died near Lisbon, July 18, 1583. After spending some years in Lisbon and Setubal, and experiencing various adventures, he left his native country in 1537, in a fleet of five ships, committing himself to a career of adventure at sea, which lasted twenty-one years, in the course of which he was five times shipwrecked, thirteen times taken captive, and seventeen times sold as a slave. If Pinto s own nar rative is coloured in many passages by a wandering and fervid imagination, its substantial honesty is now generally admitted, in spite of Congreve s opprobrium in Love for Love, &quot; F. M. Pinto was but a type of thee, thou liar of the first magnitude.&quot; The fleet with which Pinto left
 * he Gallery of Eminent Persons of Scotland (1799), was