Page:Imperialdictiona03eadi Brandeis Vol3a.pdf/812

PUS president in 1854. He contributed many papers to the society's journal, and acted for some years as editor of it.—J. H. B.  PUSHKIN,, the most eminent of the poets of Russia, was born at Moscow on the 26th May, 1799, being descended paternally from one of the Teutonic knights, and on the mother's side from Peter the Great's African general, Annibaloff. In 1811 he entered the imperial lyceum of St. Petersburg, then situated at Tsarskoe Selo. Here he remained six years, and formed school attachments to which not unfrequent allusion is made in his writings. His studies were somewhat desultory, and he attained to no academical distinction. While yet at the lyceum he had begun his romantic poem of "Ruslan and Liudmila," and written many fugitive pieces which have not been preserved. His didactic poem, "Infidelity," drew forth the public approbation of the aged poet, Derjavin, in the presence of the emperor and the assembled professors and students of the lyceum. On quitting the lyceum in 1817 the young poet entered the foreign office, and immediately obtained a position in the highest sphere of Russian society. Three years passed in the whirl of fashionable life had no inconsiderable influence upon the tone of his poetry, marked as it is in many places with the practical sense and covert sarcasm which has so much success in the world. The Russian language, too, acquires from Pushkin's handling a polish and an elevation which it had not reached before. In 1820 the poet quitted the capital, and for five years led a wandering, unsettled life, during which he published the "Prisoner of the Caucasus," a romantic poem, which was read with avidity, and created among his countrymen an enthusiasm like that which Lord Byron at that time excited in England. This was followed by the "Fountain of Bakhtchisarai," a poem of great beauty. In 1825 appeared the first canto of "Evgenii Oniégin," a satirical poem, directed against the fashionable society of Russia, and constructed somewhat on the plan of Byron's Don Juan. In 1829 was published a collected edition of Pushkin's works, of which but few can be mentioned here. In February, 1831, the poet married a beautiful woman, Mademoiselle Gontchareff, and shortly afterwards published his tragedy of "Boris Godunoff." He was also appointed imperial historiographer by the czar, who had previously to the marriage manifested his displeasure at the wildness of the poet's life, and the boldness of his satirical effusions. His historical account of the rebellion of Pugatscheff seemed to justify the appointment; and a volume of admirable prose tales appeared only to enlarge the writer's fame, when his brilliant career was suddenly cut short by a most untoward event. Impelled by a false sense of honour to challenge a person who was a frequent visitor at his house, Pushkin fell mortally wounded, and died on the 29th January, 1837.—R. H.  PUTSCHIUS,, was born at Antwerp about 1580 or 1583, and died at Stade in 1606. He published an edition of Sallust with fragments and notes, and the celebrated edition of Thirty-three Ancient Grammarians which appeared at Hanau, in 1605.—D. W. R.  PUTTENHAM,, a poet and critic of the age of Elizabeth, was born somewhere about the year 1530. Scarcely anything is known of his life, except from a few scattered notices contained in his book, "The Arte of English Poesie." From those we learn that he travelled much in Italy and other foreign countries in his youth, that he was a native of the south of England, and that he was well acquainted with Sir Nicholas Bacon, the father of the philosopher. Bolton, in his Hypercritica (1722), states that it was the common fame that Puttenham was a gentleman pensioner at the court of Elizabeth. He wrote several plays, but they are all lost. His "Art of Poesie," published in 1589, probably after his death, but evidently written many years before, is a work of great value. It contains criticisms on all the English poets who had flourished up to and during his own time, in which, quaintly as they are expressed, much penetration and good taste are observable. He preserves extracts from many lost works by contemporary poets.—T. A.  PUYSEGUR,, Vicompte de, lieutenant-general in the service of Louis XIII. and Louis XIV., was born in 1600, being descended from one of the oldest families of Armagnac. He entered the army at the age of seventeen, rose to the rank of lieutenant-general, and was named governor of Berg. His military services ranged over a period of forty-one years, during which, though present at above thirty battles and a hundred and twenty sieges, he escaped without a wound. Brave and faithful to the king, Puysegur never stooped to curry favour with his ministers, which was then the only way to wealth and promotion, and died in 1682 without adding anything to the family estates. His Memoirs, from 1617 to 1658, were published in 1690 by Duchesne.—W. J. P.  PUYSEGUR,, Marquis de, son of the preceding, born at Paris in 1655, entered the king's regiment of infantry in 1677. After rising slowly through the different grades, he was attached to the establishment of the Duc de Bourgogne, and became lieutenant-general in 1704. During the minority of Louis XV. Puysegur was member of the council of war, and up to the time of his death few military operations were undertaken without his being consulted. While commander-in-chief in the Low Countries in 1734, he received the baton of marshal of France, to which ability and long service eminently entitled him. He wrote many military treatises, of which one was published in 1748, entitled "L'Art de la Guerre," which takes Rank with the works of Folard and Vauban. He died in 1743.—W. J. P.  PYE,, Southey's predecessor in the poet laureateship, was born in 1745, the son of a country gentleman who had represented Berkshire in four parliaments. At ten, the perusal of Pope's Homer made him a rhymer. Educated at Magdalen college, Oxford, he succeeded, on coming of age, to his father's property, and honourably sold it off to pay his father's debts. He was an active officer of the Berkshire militia, and when encamped with it at Coxheath, translated in 1778 into English verse Frederick the Great's French poem on the Art of War. In 1784 he entered the house of commons; in 1790 he was made poet laureate, and in 1792 one of the magistrates of Westminster. He died in 1813. As a poet laureate he was most industrious. "Notwithstanding his conviviality," say Messrs. Austen and Ralph in their Lives of the Laureates, "it was during his laureateship that the tierce of canary was discontinued and the £27 substituted." His unofficial works—there is a list of his writings in Watt's Bibliotheca—include "The Progress of Refinement," a poem, 1783; "Shooting," a poem, 1784; and translations of the Poetics of Aristotle, of Xenophon's Defence of the Athenian Democracy, of the Elegies of Tyrtæus, of the Epigrams and Hymns called Homer's, and of Burger's Lenore. Pye, said Lord Byron satirically, "was a man eminently respectable in every thing but his poetry."—F. E.  PYM,, a famous English statesman and orator, was descended from a good family in Somersetshire, and was born in 1584; He entered Broadgate hall, now Pembroke college, Oxford, in 1599, where he became an accomplished scholar; and on leaving the university he studied at one of the inns of court, and made himself familiar with the principles of common law. At an early age he was appointed a clerk in the exchequer office, where he acquired excellent business habits. He entered the house of commons in 1614 as member for Colne, but it was not until 1620 that he appears to have taken an active part in public affairs. In no long time he distinguished himself in the house by his ability and zeal in resisting the arbitrary measures of James I., who provoked at his opposition, termed Pym "a very ill-tempered spirit." He was one of the twelve commissioners or "twal kynges," as James sarcastically termed them, who were sent to wait on his majesty at Newmarket, with a vindication of the privileges of parliament. Becoming still more obnoxious to the court, he was summoned before the council along with the popular leaders. Coke, Philips, and Mallory, and committed to the Tower for his resistance to the despotic and unconstitutional policy of the king. After the accession of Charles, the activity and influence of Pym in the house of commons became still more conspicuous. He was appointed one of the managers of the impeachment against the duke of Buckingham in 1626, and on the meeting of the Short parliament on the 13th of April, 1640, he delivered a powerful speech of two hours' length, and took an active part in the measures which led the king most unwisely to have recourse to a dissolution. When the celebrated Long parliament met on the 18th of November following, Pym was at once recognized as the leader of the constitutional party; and his eloquence, knowledge, and experience in parliamentary forms and usages, gave him such vast influence that his opponents nicknamed him "King Pym." It was he who denounced Strafford as "the greatest enemy to the liberties of his country, and the greatest promoter of tyranny that any age had produced," and who impeached that statesman at the bar of the house of lords <section end="812Zcontin" />