Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/120

Rh 110 P I P I P audience which he craved of the sovereigns, and very shortly after died, it is supposed of chagrin. Even although it could be proved that Alonzo s intentions were dishonourable, we should remember that it was largely through his liberality that Columbus was enabled to carry out his immortal voyage. VICENTE YANEZ PINZON, who commanded the &quot;Nina,&quot; also gave Columbus material help, and remained loyal to his leader throughout. In after years he made important discoveries on his own account. In 1499 he sailed with four caravels across the Atlantic to the south-west, and on January 20, 1 500, he struck the South-American continent at Cape S. Agostinho, its most easterly projection, three months before the Portuguese navigator Cabral reached Brazil, the discovery of which is generally attributed to him. Proceeding southwards a short distance, he then turned north, followed the coast to the north-west, and went as far at least as what is now Costa Rica. After touching at Hayti, and losing two of his vessels among the Bahamas, Vicente returned to Palos in the end of Septem ber 1500. Although concessions were made to him, and he was created governor of the newly discovered lands by Ferdinand and Isabella, he does not seem to have ever taken possession. In 1508 we find Vicente sailing with Juan Diaz de Salis along the east coast of South America, in their attempt to find an opening towards the west that would conduct them to the Spice Islands. He did not get beyond the 40th degree of S. lat., about the mouth of the Rio Negro, having passed the mouth of the La Plata without recognizing it. After 1523 all traces of Vicente are lost. Xavarrete, Colcccion de Viajes ; Humboldt, Geography of the New World ; Washington Irving s Columbus and Comimnions of Columbus ; bibliography in Joaquin Caetano da Silva s L Oyapoc et VAmazone ; Peschel, Gcschichte dcs Zeitalters dcr Entdcckunyen. PIOMBO, SEBASTIANO DEL. See SEBASTIANO. PIOTRKOW, the chief town of a government of the same name in Russian Poland, and formerly the seat of the high court of Poland, is situated on the railway from Warsaw to Vienna, 90 miles by rail to the south-west of the capital, 5 miles to the west of the river Pilica, Ten years ago it was a poor town of 17,000 inhabitants, but it has grown during the last few years, partly as the seat of the provincial administration, and partly in conse quence of the development of trade. In April 1882 it had 23,050 inhabitants, including 3000 military. Its manufactures are still insignificant; it has a few flour- mills, saw-mills, soap-works, and breweries. PIOZZI, HESTER LYNCH (1741-1821), the daughter of John Salisbury of Bodville, Carnarvonshire, was born there, as it would appear from a protracted dispute between Croker and Macaulay, 27th January 1741. After an education which extended considerably beyond that given to most ladies of her period for she was acquainted with the learned languages as well as with French, Italian, and Spanish she Avas married in 1763 to Henry Thrale, a brewer of Southwark, whose house was at Streatham on the south-east corner of Tooting Beck Common. In this retreat she drew around her many of the most distin guished men of letters of the age. She was introduced to Johnson by Arthur Murphy in the year after her marriage, and for nearly twenty years the sage remained on the closest intimacy with her. He travelled with them in Wales in 1774, and visited France in their company in 1775. Boswell s first visit to Streatham took place in October 1769. Madame D Arblay was first received there in August 1778. In spite of this intercourse with the princi pal writers of the day troubles grew upon her in her married life. Her talents were not appreciated by her husband ; he was always ill and frequently in pecuniary anxiety ; and when children were born to her they often succumbed to sickness. After some years illness Mr Thrale died on April 4, 1781, and, as the brewery in the borough sold for .135,000, the widow found herself amply provided for. At the time of Mr Thrale s death Dr Johnson was in declining health, and he soon began to think himself slighted, nor was his indignation abated at the announcement in the spring of 1783 of her engage ment to Piozzi, an Italian musician. For a time the engagement was broken off, but it was quickly resumed, and on the 25th of July 1784 they were married. The union provoked the resentment of her children, and the undying denunciations of Dr Johnson ; but, when her husband was found to be a man of quiet and inoffensive manners and a careful guardian of his wife s resources, her children acquiesced in the marriage and most of her friends returned to her. Baretti, always her enemy, abused her, and Boswell ridiculed her, but her character has survived the insinuations of the one and the open malevolence of the other, as well as the satiric attacks of Peter Pindar. Piozzi died of gout at Brynbella, March 1809, and from that time his widow s life was chiefly spent in the social circles of Bath and Clifton or in the retire ment of Penzance. When long past seventy she took a fancy to William Augustus Conway the actor, and the &quot; love letters &quot; which she wrote to him have been published with a catchpenny title. She died at Clifton, 2d May 1821. Airs Piozzi was bright and witty, and possessed of manners which, if not refined, never failed to attract. Several of her literary publications have long since perished from want of vitality, but her little poem of &quot; The Three Warnings &quot; forms a part of most selections of English poetry. Her Anecdotes of Dr Johnson, now a scarce book, are contained, &quot; as she herself gave them to the world,&quot; in the concluding volume of Napier s Johnson (1884), and her notes to Wraxall s Historical Memoirs are reprinted in the 1884 edition of that work. The Anecdotes and the Letters to and from Dr Johnson are inferior in interest only to the work of Boswell. Two editions of the Autobiography of Mrs Tiozzi, under the editorship of Abraham Hayward, have been issued, and the Rev. Edward Mangiu published in 1833, under the disguise of &quot;by a friend,&quot; a thin volume of Piozziana. Her features are reproduced in the lady s countenance in Hogarth s picture of the Lady s Last Stake. PIPE (see Music, vol. xvii. p. 77 ; and ORGAN, ib. p. 829). Strutt, in his Sports and Pastimes of the People of England, gives representations of the pipe and tabor as used in England in the 14th century to accompany a dancing-dog, a cock on stilts, a horse rearing, &c. From the drawings we cannot ascertain the nature of the pipe represented. We may, however, suppose it to have been similar to the galoubet used in France, along with the tabor, from a very remote period. This galoubet is a small instrument of the flageolet kind. Its use for more than the last two centuries has been confined to Provence. It has only three finger-holes, and is played with the left hand, whilst the right beats the tabor, which is attached to the performer. The compass of the galoubet is two octaves and a tone from D on the third line of the treble clef up to E in altissimo. Great skill is required to bring out all the sounds of its compass. Some of the players on this small and imperfect instrument are said to be so dexterous as to be able to perform upon it very difficult pieces of music composed for other instruments, such as the violin, &c. It is always accompanied by the tabor, which is a small drum of a cylindrical form, and rather longer and narrower in its relative proportions than the common drum. In the last century several books of instruction were published at Paris by distinguished per formers on the galoubet. PIPE, TOBACCO. The smoking of tobacco in pipes is a custom which prevailed in America for a period of unknown duration previous to the discovery of that con-