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 PORSON PORTAGE 721 for assistance in recovering their kingdom. Porsena marched with an Etruscan army to the fortified hill Janiculum, and on his appear- ance the Romans fled to the Tiber and to the Sublician bridge, the defence of which was intrusted to Horatius Codes, who held the Etruscans in check at one end while the bridge was broken down behind him, and then swam the river safely. Porsena besieged the city, but learning from C. Mucius Scaevola, after the siege had lasted for some time, that 300 noble Romans had bound themselves by an oath to kill him, he made peace upon the reception of hostages, and retired to Olusium. This legend is believed by critics to veil the fact of a short subjugation of Rome by the Etruscans, which is implied by Pliny, Tacitus, and other writers. PORSON, Richard, an English scholar, born at East Ruston, Norfolk, Dec. 25, 1759, died in London, Sept. 25, 1808. At the age of nine he was sent to a village school at Happisburgh, where he remained three years. His father, who was parish clerk of East Ruston, required him to repeat every night the lessons that he had gone through during the day ; and to this early exercise of his memory may perhaps be attributed that retentive power for which it afterward became remarkable. When 15 years of age he was sent to Eton at the expense of some gentlemen of the neighborhood. He then knew by heart nearly the whole of Hor- ace and Virgil, the Iliad, the Odyssey, and many parts of Cicero and Livy; and in his own opinion he acquired little at Eton but facility in Latin versification. In 1777, prin- cipally by the assistance of Sir George Baker, president of the royal college of physicians, he entered Trinity college, Cambridge, where he obtained a fellowship in 1782, and graduated M. A. in 1785. Conscientious scruples deterred him from subscribing to the thirty-nine ar- ticles, and he vacated his fellowship in 1791. In 1792 his friends subscribed 2,000, which was so invested as to give him for the rest of his life an income of 100 per annum ; and he was made regius professor of Greek at Cam- bridge, with a salary of only 40 a year. In 1806, on the establishment of the London institution, he was appointed head librarian, with a salary of 200. His first attempts as an author were made in Dr. Maty's " Review " as early as 1783, and consisted of articles on ^Eschylus, Brunck's Aristophanes, Weston's Hermesianax, and other subjects. In 1786 he added some notes to an edition of Xenophon's Anabasis, and in 1790 published notes on Tou- pii Emendationes in Suidam. He first ap- peared as an author under his own name in the letters to Archdeacon. Travis upon the contested verse 1 John v. 7, entitled " Letters on the Three Witnesses" (1790). He added a few short notes to the London edition of Heyne's Virgil, corrected the text of ^Eschylus for the Glasgow edition, prepared an edition of the "Hecuba," "Orestes," " Pho3nissa3," and "Medea" of Euripides, collated the Har- leian manuscript of the Odyssey for the Gren- ville Homer, and added notes, and corrected for the press the first volume of the edition of Herodotus printed at Edinburgh in 1806. He bestowed considerable pains on the restoration of the Greek text of the Rosetta stone. His NotcB in Aristophanem and Notce ad Pausa- niam were published in 1820, and the Photii Lexicon in 1822. The work entitled Adversa- ria was arranged after Person's death from memoranda found among his papers. Seden- tary and irregular habits impaired his consti- tion, and he has been described as an habitual drunkard, but apparently without truth, though he drank at times to intoxication. Asa classi- cal scholar and critic he has had few rivals. See "Life of Richard Porson, M. A.," by the Rev. John Selby Watson, M. A. (8vo, Lon- don, 1861). PORTA, Bacdo delta. See BARTOLOMMEO, FEA. PORTA, Giambattista delta, an Italian natural philosopher, born in Naples about 1540, died there, Feb. 4, 1615. He opened his house to a society of literary men called i segreti, whose meetings were finally prohibited by the court of Rome on the supposition that magic and other unlawful secrets were discussed at them. He travelled extensively over Europe, liberally aiding the establishment of private schools for the study of particular sciences, and of public academies. Late in life he wrote dramas, which are now forgotten. His investigations, though frequently absurd, have proved of great value. The theory of light is much indebted to his labors, and he was the inventor of the camera obscura and other optical instruments, inclu- ding, it was formerly supposed, the telescope. He was a voluminous writer on a great variety of subjects, including natural magic, the art of secret writing, human physiognomy, landscape gardening, optics, curvilinear geometry, chem- istry, meteorology, &c. His chief work is De Humana Physiognomia (Sorrento, 1586 ; Ital- ian translation by himself, fol., Naples, 1598). PORTAELS, Jean Francois, a Belgian painter, born at Vilvoorden in 1820. He studied in Brussels and under Delaroche in Paris, spent several years in Italy and the East, became di- rector of the academy of Ghent in 1847, and was knighted in 1851. His principal paintings relate to oriental subjects, and include, besides a portrait of his patron Mehemet Ali, " The Drought in Judffia," "Fatima," "The Gypsy," "Rebecca," "Ruth," "A Caravan in Syria overtaken by a Simoom," " A Funeral in the Desert of Suez," "A Young Jewess of Asia Minor," " A Story-teller of Cairo," and " Suicide of Judas." His masterpiece, repre- senting "A Drought in Egypt," obtained in 1873 a special gold medal, awarded at the Syd- enham crystal palace for the best picture. PORTAGE. I. A N. E. county of Ohio, drained by Cuyahoga and Mahoning rivers; area, 500 sq. m.; pop. in 1870, 24,584 It is intersected by the Pennsylvania and canal, and by the Cleveland and Pittsburgh