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POR her talents quickly developed themselves. At the age of thirteen she wrote and published "Artless Tales," and afterwards many other works, the principal of which are "The Hungarian Brothers," "Don Sebastian," "The Barony," and a volume of poems. She died at Bristol, June 21, 1832.—E. B., L.  PORTER,, author of "The Progress of the Nation," was the son of a merchant of London, where he was born in 1792. He began life as a sugar-broker, and failed. In 1831 he contributed a paper on "Life Assurance" to the Companion to the Almanac of Mr. Charles Knight, who when declining the late Lord Auckland's invitation in 1832 to digest for the board of trade the information contained in the publications of parliament, recommended Mr. Porter for the task. Under Sir Porter, from this small beginning, grew up the statistical department of the board of trade; and to his duties as its head he added, in 1840, those of the senior member of the railway department of the same board. In 1841 he became one of the secretaries of the board. He was a zealous free-trader, and an energetic and useful official. He died in 1852, and there is a memoir of him, with a list of his writings, in the Gentleman's Magazine of that year. He will long be known as the author of "The Progress of the Nation." a work of which he issued three editions, the last in 1851. It is a singularly useful and lucid digest, with pertinent and instructive comments, of the national statistics, from the beginning of the century when possible, and illustrating every section of the financial, commercial, industrial, and social history of the United Kingdom. The edition of 1851 embodies and summarizes the facts and figures furnished by parliamentary papers as late as, but no later than, 1849.—F. E.  PORTER,, a novelist, was born at Durham in 1776, and educated with her sister at a school in Edinburgh, under the tutorship of Mr. George Fulton, a man of considerable note in his day. An agreeable manner, with surprising powers of conversation, soon won for her many distinguished friends. At an early age she wrote her first work, "The Spirit of the Elbe," followed by "Thaddeus of Warsaw," which was translated into several continental languages. She was soon afterwards elected a "lady chanoiness" of the Teutonic order of St. Joachim, and a relative of Kosciusko sent her a gold ring containing his portrait. In 1809 appeared "The Scottish Chiefs," which gained a fame equal to that of its predecessor. After having retired from the field of literature for many years, she reappeared as the editress of "Sir Edward Seaward's Diary." This work seemed real enough to be thought worthy of an elaborate refutation in a leading review. By the merciless rummaging of admiralty records and Indian maps by her critic, she was more flattered than annoyed. When pressed as to the origin of Sir Edward Seaward, she would quietly say—"Sir Walter Scott had his great secret; I may be allowed to keep my little one." In 1831 her mother died, and within a year her sister. Then, as she says, she became a wanderer, paying lengthened visits to numerous old and attached friends. Latterly she resided with her brother at Bristol, where she died May 24, 1850, maintaining to the last moment her intellectual faculties, and that cheerfulness of disposition so conspicuous through her long and useful life.—E. B., L.  PORTES,. See.  PORTEUS,, an eminent English bishop, descended from parents who emigrated from Virginia in 1720, was born at York in 1731. He went to school in that city. He entered Christ's college, Cambridge, as a sizar, where, so high were his character and attainments, that he was soon elected to a fellowship, and made an esquire-bedel of the university, which office he soon resigned. In 1757 he was ordained deacon; in 1758, presbyter. In 1759 he won the Seatonian prize for an excellent poem on Death. In 1762 he was made chaplain to Archbishop Seeker. After holding the livings of Rucking and Wittersham in Kent, which he exchanged for Hutton, and a stall in Peterborough cathedral, he was advanced to the rectory of Lambeth. In 1767 he took his degree of D.D. In 1769, through the influence of Queen Charlotte, he was made chaplain to George III., master of the hospital of S. Cross, near Winchester, dean of the Chapel Royal, and provincial dean of Canterbury. In 1773 he took part in a movement which will be best described in the following abridgment of his own words: "An attempt was made by myself and a few other clergymen to induce the bishops to promote a review of the liturgy and articles, in order to amend in both, but particularly in the latter, those parts which reasonable persons agreed stood in need of amendment; to render the seventeenth article, on predestination and election, more clear and perspicuous, and less likely to be wrested by our adversaries to a Calvinistic sense, which has been so unjustly affixed to it; to improve true christian piety amongst those of our own communion; and to diminish schism and separation, by bringing over all the moderate of other persuasions. We requested Archbishop Cornwallis to signify our wishes to the rest of the bishops, that everything might be done which could be prudently and safely done to promote these salutary purposes. The archbishop replied, 'I have consulted severally my brethren the bishops, and it is the opinion of the bench in general, that nothing can in prudence be done in the matter that has been submitted to our consideration." In this decision Porteus cheerfully acquiesced. In 1776 he was made bishop of Chester, where he laboured hard in the cause of protestantism, and the establishment of Sunday schools. In 1787, on the recommendation of Mr. Pitt, he was translated to the see of London, and died at his palace at Fulham on the 14th of May, 1808. He left his library to future bishops, together with a contribution towards the building of a new wing for its reception at Fulham palace. He was buried at Hyde Hill, near Sunbridge. in Kent, beneath a chapel which he had erected and endowed with £250 a year. His works, including his "Life of Archbishop Seeker," and his "Lent Lectures on St. Matthew," were edited by his nephew, the late Dr. Hodgson, dean of Carlisle.—T. J.  PORTLAND. See .  PORTSMOUTH, (the Madam Carwell of the common people), Duchess of, a mistress of Charles II., who exercised a great influence over him, personally and politically, belonged to a noble French family of Normandy. She came to England in 1670 in the suite of Henrietta, Charles II.'s sister (married to the duke of Orleans), and with the intention of fascinating the king, in order to play the game of Louis XIV. She was at once successful, remaining Charles II.'s favourite mistress until his death, and the main upholder of French interests in England. She became the mother of the first duke of Richmond in 1672, and in 1673 was created Duchess of Portsmouth. Evelyn, writing of her after her first appearance in England, calls her "that famous beauty, but in my opinion of a childish, simple, and baby face." She survived till the November of 1734.—F. E.  PORTUS,, son of Francis, born in 1551 at Ferrara; died in 1610. He taught Greek at Lausanne and Heidelberg, and was a laborious classical author and editor, producing a translation of Suidas, dictionaries of the Doric and Ionic dialects, and, along with his father, an annotated and much prized edition of Xenophon.—W. M. R. <section end="783H" /> <section begin="783I" />PORTUS,, a classical commentator, born in Candia in 1511; died in Geneva on 5th June, 1581. From his native island Portus came early to Padua. In 1542, by demurring to sign certain articles of faith, he gave symptoms of the religious convictions which afterwards made him a Calvinist, and which settled him finally in Geneva, after a residence from 1546 to 1561 with Renée, duchess of Ferrara, as preceptor to her daughters. He wrote additions to Constantine's Greek Dictionary, 1593; Commentaries on Pindar's Thucydides, and many other Greek authors; and a Reply to Charpentier's Defence of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew.—W. M. R. <section end="783I" /> <section begin="783J" />PORUS, the name of an Indian king who ruled over the district east of the Hydaspes when Alexander invaded India. He assembled an army so formidable that the Greeks were unable to cross the river in its presence. Alexander, however, succeeded in effecting a passage with a portion of his troops, a hundred and fifty stadia further up, and a great battle ensued in which Porus was defeated. His magnanimity and courage secured to him the favour of his conqueror, who extended his sway over the whole tract of country between the Hydaspes and the Hyphasis. Of this empire he remained master till his death, which was caused by the treachery of Eudemus, a Macedonian general.—Another Porus, a cousin of this king, who reigned over Gandaris, a district east of the Hydraotes, fled before the approach of Alexander. He was deprived of his dominions, which were added to those of his kinsman.—D. W. R. <section end="783J" /> <section begin="783Zcontin" />PORY,, traveller and geographer, was born about 1570, and educated at Cains college, Cambridge. Hakluyt seems to have inspired him with a love for foreign history and cosmography, and in 1600 he published a geographical history of Africa, <section end="783Zcontin" />