The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 355

POET'S CORNER, a corner in the SW. transept of Westminster Abbey, so called as containing the tombs of Chaucer, Spenser, and other eminent English poets.

POGGENDORF, JOHANN CHRISTIAN, a German physicist and chemist, born at Hamburg; professor of Physics at Berlin; was the editor for more than half a century of the famous _Annalen der Physik und Chimie_, and the author of numerous papers (1796-1877).

POGGIO, BRACCIOLINI, an Italian scholar, born in Florence, was a distinguished humanist, and devoted to the revival of cla.s.sical learning, collecting MSS. of the cla.s.sics wherever he could find them that might otherwise have been lost, including Quintilian's "Inst.i.tutions," great part of Lucretius, and several orations of Cicero, &c.; wrote a "History of Florence," where he died; he was the author of a collection of stories and of jests in Latin at the expense of the monks (1380-1459).

POINT DE GALLE (33), a town on a promontory in the SW. of Ceylon, with a good harbour, and the great port of call for the lines of steamers in the Eastern waters.

POISSON, SIMEON-DENIS, a celebrated French mathematician, born at Pithiviers; was for his eminence in mathematical ability and physical research raised to the peerage; wrote no fewer than 300 memoirs (1781-1840).

POITIERS (34), the capital of the dep. of Vienne, 61 m. SW. of Tours; has a number of interesting buildings, a university and large library; in its neighbourhood Clovis defeated Alaric II. in 507, Charles Martel the Moors in 732, and the Black Prince the troops of King John in 1356.

POITOU, formerly a province in France, lying S. of the Loire, between the Vienne River and the sea; pa.s.sed to England when its countess, Eleanor, married Henry I., 1152; was taken by Philip Augustus 1205, ceded to England again 1360, and retaken by Charles V. 1369.

POLA (31), the chief naval station of Austria, 73 m. S. of Trieste, in the Adriatic; the harbour is both s.p.a.cious and deep; was originally a Roman colony, and a flouris.h.i.+ng seat of commerce.

POLAND, formerly a kingdom larger than modern Austro-Hungary, with a population of 24 millions, lying between the Baltic and the Carpathians, with Pomerania, Brandenburg, and Silesia on the W., and the Russian provinces of Smolensk, Tchernigoff, Poltava, and Kherson on the E.; the Dwina, the Memel, and the Vistula flowed through its northern plains; the Dnieper traversed the E., the Dniester and the Bug rose in its SE.

corner. The country is fertile; great crops of cereals are raised; there are forests of pine and oak, and extensive pasture lands; vast salt-mines are wrought at Cracow; silver, iron, copper, and lead in other parts.

Poland took rank among European powers in the 10th century under Mieczyslaw, its first Christian king. During the 12th and 13th centuries it sank to the rank of a duchy. In 1241 the Mongols devastated the country, and thereafter colonies of Germans and Jewish refugees settled among the Slav population. The first Diet met in 1331, and Casimir the Great, 1333-1370, raised the country to a high level of prosperity, fostering the commerce of Danzig and Cracow. The dynasty of the Jagellons united Lithuania to Poland, ended two centuries' contest with the Teutonic knights, and yielded to the n.o.bles such privileges as turned the kingdom into an oligarchy and elective monarchy. At the time of the Reformation Poland was the leading power in Eastern Europe. The new doctrines gained ground there in spite of severe persecution. Warsaw became the capital in 1569. The power and arrogance of the n.o.bles grew; the necessity for unanimity in the votes of the Diet gave them a weapon to stop all progress and all correction of their own malpractices.

Sigismund III. made unsuccessful attempts to seize the crowns of Russia and Sweden. In the middle of the 17th century a terrible struggle against Russia, Sweden, Brandenburg and the Cossacks ended in the complete defeat of Poland, from which she never recovered. Wars with the Turks, dissensions among her own n.o.bles, quarrels at the election of every king, the continuance of serfdom, and the persecution of the adherents of the Greek Church and the Protestants, rendered her condition more and more deplorable. Austria, Russia, and Prussia began to interfere in her affairs. She was unfortunate in her choice of kings, and in the second half of the 18th century she was without natural boundaries, and Frederick the Great started the idea of part.i.tion. The first seizure of territory by the three interfering powers took place in 1772. A movement for reform reorganised the Diet, improved the condition of the serfs, established religious toleration, and promulgated a new const.i.tution in 1781; but a party of unpatriotic n.o.bles resented it, and laid the country open to a second seizure of territory by Prussia and Russia in 1793. The Poles now made a desperate stand under Kosciusko, but their three powerful neighbours were too strong, and the final part.i.tion of Poland between them took place in 1795. The Congress of Vienna rearranged the division in 1815, and reconst.i.tuted the Russian portion as a kingdom, with the Czar as king; but discontent broke into rebellion, and led to the final repression of independence in 1832.

POLDERS, low marshy lands in Holland and Belgium, drained and reclaimed from sea or river; they form an important part of the former, and are conspicuous from the verdure they display; they include nearly 150 acres of good land, the largest being that of Haarlem Meer, which is 70 square miles in extent, and was drained by steam.

POLE, the name given to the extremities of the imaginary axis of the earth, round which it is conceived to revolve.

POLE, REGINALD, cardinal, archbishop of Canterbury, born at Stourton Castle, Staffords.h.i.+re, of royal blood; studied at Oxford; took holy orders, and was appointed to various benefices by Henry VIII., who held him in high favour; but he opposed the project of divorcing Catherine, and was driven from the royal presence and deprived of his power; but elected to the cardinalate by the Pope, he tried to return after Henry's death, but was not received back till Mary's accession, when he came as Papal legate, and was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury after the death of Cranmer, whom he refused to supersede as long as he lived; he was not obsequious enough to the Pope, and his legation was cancelled; the Queen's illness accelerated his own end, and he died the day after her; he has been charged with abetting the Marian persecution, but it is highly questionable how far he was answerable for it (1506-1558).

POLE-STAR or POLARIS, a star in the northern hemisphere, in Ursa Minor, the nearest conspicuous one to the N. pole of the heavens, from which it is at present 1 distant; a straight line joining the two "pointers" in Ursa Major pa.s.ses nearly through it.

POLIGNAC, DUC DE and d.u.c.h.eSS DE, husband and wife; were chargeable with the extravagances of the court of Louis XVI., and were the first to emigrate at the outbreak of the Revolution, the former dying in 1817 and the latter in 1793.

POLIGNAC, PRINCE DE, French statesman, born at Versailles, of an old n.o.ble family, prime minister of Charles X., to whose fall he contributed by his arbitrary measures; in attempting flight at the Revolution was captured and sentenced to death, which was converted into banishment; he was allowed to return at length (1780-1847).

POLITIAN, ANGELO, eminent Italian scholar, born in Tuscany; was patronised by Lorenzo de' Medici, was made professor of Greek and Latin at the university of Florence, his fame in which capacity drew to his cla.s.s students from all parts of Europe; he did much to forward the Renaissance movement, and was distinguished as a poet no less than as a scholar; he became a priest towards the close of his life (1454-1494).

POLITICAL ECONOMY, the name given to the modern _soi-disant_ science concerned with the production, distribution, and exchange of wealth, against the relevancy of which to the economics of the world Ruskin has, for most part in vain, during the last forty years emitted a scornful protest, affirming that this is "mercantile" and not "political economy at all," which he insists is the "economy of a state or of citizens,"

consisting "simply in the production and distribution at fittest time and place of useful or pleasurable things ... a science which teaches nations to desire and labour for the things that lead to life, and to scorn and destroy those that lead to destruction ... though, properly speaking, it is neither an art nor a science, but a system of conduct and legislature, founded on the sciences, directing the arts, and impossible, except under certain conditions of moral culture," with which last, however, the modern political economists maintain their science has nothing whatever to do.

POLIZIANO. See POLITIAN.

POLK, JAMES KNOX, eleventh President of the United States, of Irish descent; admitted to the bar in 1820, entered Congress in 1825, became President in 1844, his term of office having been signalised by the annexation of Texas and California (1795-1849).

POLLIO, CAIUS ASINIUS, orator, historian, and poet, born at Rome; sided with Caesar against Pompey, and after the death of the former with Antony; was a patron of letters and the friend of Virgil and Horace, both of whom dedicated poems to him; he was the first to establish a public library in Rome (76 B.C. to A.D. 4).

POLLOCK, SIR EDWARD, an eminent English judge, born in London, contemporary of Brougham, a Tory in politics, represented Huntingdon, was twice over Attorney-General, became Chief Baron of the Exchequer in 1844, and made a baronet on his retirement from the bench (1783-1870).

POLLOCK, SIR GEORGE, field-marshal, born at Westminster, brother of the preceding; distinguished himself in Nepal and the Afghan War, in the latter forced the Kyber Pa.s.s, defeated Akbar Khan, and relieved Sir Robert Sale, who was shut up in Jelallabad (1786-1872).

POLLOK, ROBERT, Scottish poet, born in Renfrews.h.i.+re; bred for the Secession Church, wrote one poem, "The Course of Time," in 10 books, on the spiritual life and human destiny, which was published when he was dying of consumption, a complaint accelerated, it is believed, by his studious habits (1799-1827).

POLLUX, the twin brother of Castor (q. v.).

POLO, a game similar to hockey, played on horseback with mallets, and devised by British officers in India in place of football.

POLO, MARCO, a celebrated traveller, born in Venice of a n.o.ble family in 1271; accompanied his father and uncle while a mere youth to the court of the Great Khan, the Tartar emperor of China, by whom he was received with favour and employed on several emba.s.sies; unwilling to part with him the emperor allowed him along with his father and uncle to escort a young princess who was going to be married to a Persian prince on the promise that they would return, but the prince having died before their arrival, and deeming themselves absolved from their promise by his death, they moved straight home for Venice, where they arrived in 1295, laden with rich presents which had been given them; having fallen into the hands of the Genoese in a hostile expedition, Marco was put in prison, where he wrote the story of his adventures, originally in French it would seem, which proved to be the first account that opened up to wondering Europe the magnificence of the Eastern world (1255-1323).

POLYANDRY, the name given to a form of polygamy met with among certain rude races, under which a woman is united and lives in marriage to several husbands.

POLYBIUS, a Greek historian, born at Megalopolis, in Arcadia; sent to Rome as a hostage, he formed an intimate friends.h.i.+p with Scipio aemilia.n.u.s, who aided him in his historical researches, and whom he accompanied to Africa on the expedition which issued in the destruction of Carthage, after which he returned to Greece and began his literary labours, the fruit of which was a history of Greece and Rome from 220 to 146 B.C. in 40 books, of which 5 have come down to us complete, a work characterised by accurate statement of facts and sound judgment of their import, written with a purpose to instruct in practical wisdom; he has been called "the first pragmatical historian" (204-122 B.C.).

POLYCARP, bishop of Smyrna, one of the early Fathers of the Church, a disciple of the Apostles and in particular of St. John; was for nearly 70 years bishop, and suffered martyrdom for refusing to renounce Christ, "after having served Him," as he said, "for 86 years"; of his writings the only one extant is an "Epistle to the Philippians," the genuineness of which, at one time questioned, is now established, and is of value chiefly in questions affecting the canon of Scripture and the origin of the Church.

POLYCRATES, the tyrant of Samos, and friend of Anacreon and art and literature generally; formed an alliance with Amasis, king of Egypt, who, struck with his prosperity, ascribed it to the envy of the G.o.ds, insinuating that they intended his ruin thereby, and advised him, in order to avert his impending doom, to throw the most valuable of his possessions into the sea, upon which he threw a signet ring of great price and beauty, to find it again in the mouth of a fish a fisherman had sold him; still, though upon this Amasis broke alliance with him, his prosperity clung to him, till one day he was allured by a Persian satrap, his enemy, away from Samos, and by him crucified to death, 521 B.C.

POLYGNOTUS, an early Greek painter, born in Thasos, and settled in Athens 463 B.C.; is considered the founder of historical painting, and is praised especially by Aristotle, who pays a high tribute to him; was the first to attempt portrait-painting and exhibit character by his art.

POLYHYMNIA, one of the nine MUSES (q. v.); she is represented as in a pensive mood, with her forefinger on her mouth; she was the inventress of the lyre and the mother of Orpheus.