PESTALOZZI-PESTILENCE. incorporated into our Syriac Bibles, and are of late which spans a water-way of about 1500 feet. Com and uncertain date. PESTALOZZI, JOHANN-HEINRICH, was born at Zürich, 12th January 1745. His family belonged to the middle class gentry. He was destined for the Christian ministry, but turned aside, however, from this profession, and betook himself to the study of law. To this pursuit he did not long remain constant. The perusal of Rousseau's Emile, and the unsatisfactory political condition in which he found Europe, united to disgust him with the artificial life of cities, and he accordingly removed to the country, to devote his life to farming. Purchasing some waste land (after he had acquired the necessary experience), he applied himself successfully to its cultivation, marrying about the same time the daughter of a wealthy merchant. His mind continuing to be afflicted by the contemplation of the unhappy condition of the masses of the people, he devoted himself, during the intervals of his work, to the consideration of the means best suited to promote their elevation. He was convinced that, by means of a sound education, a remedy might be found for the many evils by which he was surrounded, and by which society was infected. To give effect to his theories, he converted his own house into an orphan asylum, and endeavoured, by a judicious blending of industrial, intellectual, and moral training, to afford a specimen of sound education, and one so contrived as to be practicable as a national scheme. Meanwhile, the pursuit of his benevolent enterprises involved him, after the lapse of fifteen years (1775-1790), in bankruptcy. The failure of his plans, and the democratic tendency of his opinions, brought upon him a good deal of contempt and opposition. His only consolation was having saved from degradation and neglect upwards of 100 children, and having issued several volumes on education, containing the results of his experience, and his hopes for the future of the masses. Many subsequent attempts to found schools and to give a specimen of rational scholastic training, were made by P., with varying educational success, but with invariable pecuniary embarrassment. His writings, meanwhile, increased in number and importance. The great idea which lay at the basis of his method of intellectual instruction was, that nothing should be treated of except in a concrete way. Objects themselves became in his hands the subject of lessons tending to the development of the observing and reasoning powers-not lessons about objects. In arithmetic, he began with the concrete, and proceeded to the abstract; and into the teaching of writing, he for the first time introduced graduation. His special attention, however, was directed to the moral and religious training of children, as distinct from their mere instruction; and here, too, graduation and a regard to the nature and susceptibilities of children, were conspicuous features of his system. Almost all P.'s methods are now substantially adopted by the instructors of elementary teachers in the Normal Schools of Europe, and to no man perhaps has primary instruction been so largely indebted. He died in 1827 at Brugg, in the canton of Basel, overwhelmed with mortifications and disappointments. PESTH, the most populous and important commercial city of Hungary, on the left bank of the Danube, opposite Buda (q. v.), and 171 miles eastsouth-east of Vienna by railway. It occupies a low and level site, and contrasts strongly with the antique, picturesque, and rock-built Buda, on the other side of the river. The two cities are connected by a magnificent suspension-bridge, erected in 1849, and It is munication is also facilitated by steam-ferries, which river runs a wide quay, paved and terraced, and cross the river every hour. Along the P. side of the backed by a handsome row of buildings, 1 miles long. The city consists of five divisions-the Inner, Leopold, Theresa, Joseph, and Francis towns. The Inner town, on the bank of the Danube, is the oldest, and the other divisions surround it in the form of a semicircle. P. is the seat of the chief judicial courts of Hungary. Its university, founded at Tyrnau, was transferred to Buda in 1780, and thence was removed hither in 1784. attended by upwards of 1000 students, who are taught by 50 professors, and is richly endowed. Attached to it are a museum, a botanic garden, an observatory, and a library of 75,000 volumes. Of the chief buildings and institutions, the principal completed in 1857; the New Buildings (Neugebäude) are the synagogue, a large and beautiful structure, -an immense edifice, now used as barracks and as an artillery dépôt; the gymnasium; military school; academy of arts; national museum, with a library of 120,000 volumes, and valuable collections of coins, medals, and antiquities; veterinary school; the national and other theatres; and the Hungarian scientific society. The town contains several important silk-spinning factories, and the principal articles of manufacture are silk, cotton, leather, jewellery, and musical instruments. The distilling of brandy, and the grinding of grain into meal and flour, are among the most important branches of industry. There are 168 flour-mills driven by water, 8 driven by wind, and 4 by steam. Four great fairs take place here annually, which draw together a concourse of more than 30,000 strangers, and at which exchanges, amounting in value to upwards of 32,000,000 florins, are made. In the course of the year, about 8000 barges unload at the quay, and the trade is chiefly in wines, raw hides, honey, wax, and an inferior spirit made from plums. After Vienna, P. has the greatest trade of any city on the Danube. Pop. in 1869, 157,275, made up of the most various nationalities-Germans, Magyars, Slovaks, Greeks, and Turks-the majority of whom are Roman Catholics. P. is mentioned for the first time in the 12th c.; but although one of the oldest towns in Hungary, its importance dates only from the reigns of Maria Theresa and Joseph II. It was desolated by the Mongols in the 13th c.; and after the battle of Mohacs (q. v.), it fell into the hands of the Turks, who held it till 1686. At the beginning of the 18th c., it was an inconsiderable town, and has only risen into importance within the last 100 years. It has suffered much from inundations of the Danube on several occasions, on one of which, in 1838, 2280 houses were destroyed. In May 1849, while Görgei, with an army of 40,000 Hungarians, occupied the heights above Buda, and bombarded the fortress, which was held for the imperial government by General Hentzi, the latter general retaliated by bombarding P.; but on the night of the 20th May, the Hungarians stormed and took the fortress; and on the following morning, raised above its battlements the standard of revolt. On the field of Rákos, in the vicinity, where the great national assemblies of the Magyars used to be held, horse-races, on the English model, now take place annually. PE'STILENCE. The terms Plague and Pestilence, corresponding to the Greek Loimos and the Latin Pestis, have, until recent times, been used indiscriminately to denote any diseases of an epid emic character which affected large masses of the community, and were remarkable for their fatality, PESTO-PETER. such as the oriental plague, the sweating sickness, cholera, certain virulent forms of fever, &c. Thus,' says Dr Craigie, in his learned work on The Practice of Physic (vol. i. p. 349), the term Loimos was applied by the Greeks to designate a species of epidemic remittent fever; and the plague of Athens described by Thucydides is manifestly an epidemic form of the same disease, which has been at all times in the summer season endemial on the coasts and islands of the Mediterranean and Archipelago. The instances of Loimos, so frequently mentioned by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and of Pestis, so often mentioned by Livy and other Roman historians in the early history of Rome, are manifestly the remittent or remittent-continuous fever, which has been at all times the native product of that district, and which acquired, after inundations of the Tiber, or a certain train of weather, the characters of a very generally diffused, a very malignant, and a very mortal distemper. Numerous instances of a similar inaccurate mode of expression occur in designating the remittent fevers of the middle ages and of modern times; and we find, even in the early history of the colonisation of the West Indian Islands and the United States, frequent examples of the term plague being applied to the remittent fever of these regions, and especially to epidemic attacks of yellow fever.' During the middle ages, we find the term Pestis applied to numerous disorders, such as syphilis, small-pox, erysipelas, epidemic sore throat, petechial fever, the sweating sickness, gangrenous pneumonia, ergotism, &c. Several Hebrew words are translated pestilence or plague, in the authorised version of the Old Testament. Some of these pestilences were sent as special judgments, and are beyond the reach of inquiry; others have the characteristics of modern epidemics, in so far as their action was not unnatur ally rapid, and they were general in their attacks. Sufficient data are not in our possession to enable us to identify with certainty any of these epidemics. It has been supposed by some critics that in some of these cases (as in Deuteronomy, xxviii. 27; Amos, iv. 10; and Zechariah, xiv. 18; and in the case of Hezekiah) the oriental plague is referred to; but Mr Poole (Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, vol. ii. p. 883) is of opinion that there is not any distinct notice of this disease in the Bible. PE'STO. See PAESTUM. PE'TAL. See COROLLA. PETARD, an instrument for blowing open gates, demolishing palisades, &c. It consists of a halfcone of thick iron filled with powder and ball; this is firmly fastened to a plank, and the latter is provided with hooks, to allow of its being attached securely to a gate, &c. The engineers attached the petard, lighted the slow-match by which it was to be fired, and fled. When the explosion took effect, a supporting column charged through the breach, while the defenders were yet in consternation. The petard has been almost universally superseded by the use of powder-bags. Large petards contained as much as 13 lbs. of powder. PETCHARY, the popular name of a number of species of the genus Tyrannus, sometimes ranked with the Shrikes (Laniada), and sometimes with the Fly-catchers (Muscicapidae). The name seems to be derived from the cry of the GRAY P. (T. Domini censis), a bird very common in the warm parts of America and in some of the islands of the West Indies, gregarious and migratory, spending the spring and summer in the islands, and retiring to the hottest parts of the mainland from the end of September to the beginning of January. Its cry is a kind of shriek, consisting of three or four shrill notes, incessantly repeated. The entire length of the Gray P. is about 9 inches. It is a very bold and strong bird, and in defence of its young, will maintain the battle against any hawk. It feeds partly on insects, sometimes on humming-birds, and partly on berries. When fat, it is much esteemed for the table, and great numbers are shot on this account.-The COMMON P. (T. caudifasciatus) is one of the most common birds of the West Indies. certain seasons of the year, when very fat, it is in great request for the table. This bird has been observed to play with a large beetle, as a cat does with a mouse, letting it drop, and catching it before it can reach the ground. It is a very bold bird, and does not scruple to attack a dog passing near its nest. At PETCHO'RA, a large river in the north of European Russia, rises on the western slope of the Ural Mountains, flows north through the eastern parts of the governments of Vologda and Archangel to about 66° 25′ N., then south-east for about 150 miles, and finally sweeping toward the north, and expanding into an estuary 30 miles wide and full of islands, falls into the Arctic Ocean, after a course of 940 miles. It is said to be navigable for large river-boats for upwards of 700 miles. The estuary, which is open from the middle of June till the middle of September, has a depth of from 20 to 30 feet. The country through which this river flows is still quite uncultivated; dense forests extend on both sides, and the character of the scenery is wild, sombre, and melancholy. The forests abound in larchwood, now largely used in the construction of iron-clad vessels. Within recent years, a colony has settled at the mouth of the P., for the purpose of felling, dressing, and exporting timber. PETE'CHIÆ. This term is given to spots of a dusky crimson or purple colour, quite flat, with a well-defined margin, and unaffected by pressure, These spots result from a minute extravasation of blood beneath which closely resemble flea-bites. the cuticle. They occur most frequently on the back, at the bend of the elbow, and in the groin. They indicate an altered state of the blood, and are often symptoms of very serious diseases, as of typhus fever, plague, scurvy, &c. They likewise occur in very severe cases of small-pox, measles, and scarlet fever, when their presence must be regarded as indicative of extreme danger. PETER, ST, apostle, named originally SIMON, was a native of Bethsaida, on the Lake of Gennesaret. His father was called Jonas; and the name by which P. is known in Christian history was given to him by our Lord, who changed his name of origin (Bar-Jona) into Cephas, a Syro-Chaldaic word, which means 'rock' or stone, and for which Petra, or, in the masculine form, Petros, is the Greek equivalent. He was a fisherman by occupation, and, together with his brother Andrew, was actually engaged in this occupation on the Sea of Galilee when our Lord called both to be his disciples, promising to 'make them fishers of men.' For this invitation they had been prepared by the preaching of John the Baptist, and they accepted it without hesitation. For the incidents recorded of P.'s life as a disciple, These we must refer to the gospel narrative. incidents all chiefly evince a warm and impulsive character, even down to the hour of weakness in which he denied his Master. It is plain from the gospel narrative that he was regarded by our Lord with special favour and affection, and the events which followed the ascension of our Lord fall in with this inference from that narrative. He was the first mover of the election 445 PETER-PETER-PENCE intensely serious, under the conviction that the end of all things is at hand' (chap. iv. 7). That the Epistle is the composition of Peter is very gener ally admitted. The external evidence is singularly strong; while the internal, derived from a consideration of style, sentiment, and doctrine, is equally so. We see in every sentence the ardent, impassioned, practical, unspeculative character of Peter, who held with a fine Hebraic vehemence of faith the great facts and principles of Christianity, but could not, like the more subtle and logical Paul, give them a systematic representation. Many critics have warmly praised the beauty and strength of the language.-The Second Epistle stands in a very different position from the first. So far as external authority is concerned, it has hardly any. The most critical and competent of the Fathers were suspicious of its authenticity; it was rarely if ever quoted, and was not formally admitted into the canon till the Council of Hippo, 393 A. D. The internal evidence is just as unsatisfactory. The great difference of style between it and the 1st Epistle is universally admitted. Bunsen, Ullmann, and Lange hold indeed that the second chapter is an interpolation, but consider the first and third genuine. Many of the ablest critics, however, regard the whole Epistle as a fabrication, and believe that its contents prove it was meant as an attack on the Gnosticism of the 2d century. [See the remarks on the Second Epistle of Peter in Neander's Ges chichte der Pflanzung und Leitung der Kirche durch die Apostel.] The principal arguments adduced for maintaining its apostolic character are-1, that its rejection would endanger the authority of the canon; 2, that it is inexplicable how the church should have received it if it had not thought that Peter was the author. of a new apostle in the room of Judas Iscariot; in the Epistle; the apostle seems to grow more he was the spokesman of the rest on the day of Pentecost; he it was who answered to the charges when they were brought before the council; he is the chief actor in the tragic scene of the death of Ananias and Sapphira; he was the first to break down the wall of the prejudice of race by receiving a Gentile convert into the church; he was the first to propound in the council of Jerusalem the question to be discussed as to the obligation of the Mosaic observances. The last incident of P.'s life supplied by the Scripture narrative is his presence in the council of Jerusalem, 49 A.D. Of his subsequent career, our only knowledge is derived from tradition. His special mission was to the Hebrew race, as Paul's to the Gentile; and he is supposed to have preached through Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, chiefly to those of his own nation dispersed in these countries, all which are named in the address of the first of the two Epistles which he has left. Another tradition which, until the 16th c., met general acceptance, reports that he preached at Rome, that he took up his residence there as bishop, and that he there suffered martyrdom. This tradition is the main foundation of the Roman claim to supremacy in the church. It early encountered the opposition of the reformers; its first antagonist being a writer named Velerius, whose work was published in 1520, and who was followed by Flachius, Salmasius, and, above all, Spanheim. This view has found a few supporters even down to our own time; but the whole current of scholarship, Protestant as well as Catholic-from Scaliger, Casaubon, Usher, Pearson, Cave, &c., down to Neander, Gieseler, Bertholdt, Olshausen, and others in our own country-has accepted the Roman tradition without hesitation. The time of his going to Rome has also been the subject of much discussion. By some, he is alleged not to have gone to Rome till the year 63, or, at all events, a short time before his martyrdom; others date his first visit as early as 42 or 43, without, however, supposing his residence after this date to have been continuous. In his first Epistle, it is implied that at the time of writing it he was at Babylon; and the name Babylon is by many critics held to be employed as a mystic designation of Rome, in accordance with a practice not unusual with the Hebrews and other orientals; but there is nothing to fix very conclusively the date of this Epistle. He is held by Roman Catholic writers to have fixed his see at Antioch before his coming to Rome; but of this supposed event also, the date is uncertain. His martyrdom is fixed in, with much probability, the year 66, and is supposed to have been at the same time and place with that of St Paul. P. was sentenced to be crucified, and, according to the tradition (preserved by Eusebius from Origen), prayed that he might be crucified with his head downwards, in order that his death might exceed in ignominy that of his Divine Master. PETER LOMBARD. See LOMBARD, PETER. PETER-PENCE, the name given to a tribute which was collected in several of the western kingdoms, and offered to the Roman pontiff, in reverence of the memory of St Peter, of whom that bishop was believed to be the successor. From an early period, the Roman see had been richly endowed; and although its first endowments were chiefly local, yet as early as the days of Gregory the Great, large estates were held by the Roman bishops in Campania, in Calabria, and even in the island of Sicily. The first idea, however, of an annual tribute appears to have come from England, and is by some ascribed to Ina (721 A.D.), king of the West Saxons, who went as a pilgrim to Rome, and there founded a hospice for Anglo-Saxon pilgrims, to be maintained by an annual contribution from England; by others, to Offa and Ethelwulf, at least in the sense of their having extended it to the entire of the Saxon territory. But this seems very uncertain; and although the usage was certainly long anterior to the Norman Conquest, Dr Lingard is disposed not to place it higher than the time of Alfred. PETER, EPISTLES GENERAL OF, the name given The tribute consisted in the payment of a silver to two Epistles contained in the canon of the New penny by every family possessing land or cattle Testament. They are called general, because they of the yearly value of 30 pence, and was collected are not addressed to particular churches or persons, in the five weeks between St Peter's and St Paul's like those of St Paul; but (as in the case of the Day and August 1. In the time of King John, the 1st Epistle) to all the Christians scattered throughout Asia Minor, or (as in the case of the 2d) to the entire body of Christians without exception. The objects of the 1st Epistle are to strengthen believers under trials; to exhort them to the earnest performance of all duties-personal, social, and domestic; and to demonstrate how thoroughly that performance depends on a spiritual recognition of Christ and his work. There is a strong eschatological tendency total annual payment was £199, 88., contributed by the several dioceses in proportion, which will be found in Lingard's History of England, vol. ii. p. 330. The tax called Romescot, with some variation, continued to be paid till the reign of Henry VIII, when it was abolished. By Gregory VII., it was sought to establish it for France; and other partial or transient tributes are recorded from Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Poland. This tribute, PETER THE HERMIT-PETER THE CRUEL. however, is quite different from the payments made annually to Rome by the kingdoms which were held to be feudatory to the Roman see-as Naples, Aragon, England under the reign of John, and several other kingdoms, at least for a time. The pope having suffered a considerable diminution of his own revenue since the revolution of 1848, an effort has been made in several parts of Europe to revive this tribute. In some countries, it has been very successful, and the proceeds have been among the chief of the resources by which Pius IX. has been enabled to meet the pressure of pecuniary embarrassments under which, with his diminished territorial possessions, it was supposed that he must necessarily have succumbed. PETER THE HERMIT, the first mover of the great medieval drama of the CRUSADES (q. v.), was of gentle birth, and a native of Amiens, where he was born about the middle of the 11th century. Having been educated at Paris, and afterwards in Italy, he became a soldier. After serving in Flanders without much distinction, he retired from the army, married, and had several children; but on the death of his wife, he became a mouk, and ultimately a hermit. In the course of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land about 1093, he was moved by observing that the Holy Sepulchre was in the hands of the Infidel, as well as by the oppressed condition of the Christian residents or pilgrims under the Moslem rule; and on his return, spoke so earnestly on the subject to Pope Urban II., that that pontiff warmly adopted his views, and commissioned him to preach throughout the West an armed confederation of Christians for the deliverance of the Holy City. Mean in figure, and diminutive in stature, his enthusiasm lent him a power which no external advantages of form could have commanded. 'He traversed Italy,' writes the historian of Latin Christianity, 'crossed the Alps, from province to province, from city to city. He rode on a mule, with a crucifix in his hand, his head and feet bare; his dress was a long robe, girt with a cord, and a hermit's cloak of the coarsest stuff. He preached in the pulpits, on the roads, in the market-places. His eloquence was that which stirs the heart of the people, for it came from his own-brief, figurative, full of bold apostrophes; it was mingled with his own tears, with his own groans; he beat his breast: the contagion spread throughout his audience. His preaching appealed to every passion-to valour and shame, to indignation and pity, to the pride of the warrior, to the compassion of the man, the religion of the Christian, to the love of the brethren, to the hatred of the unbeliever aggravated by his insulting tyranny, to reverence for the Redeemer and the saints, to the desire of expiating sin, to the hope of eternal life.' The results are well known, as among those moral marvels of enthusiasm of which history presents occasional examples. All France, especially, was stirred from its very depths; and just at the time when the enthusiasm of that country had been already kindled to its full fervour, it received a sacredness and an authority from the decree of a council held at Clermont, in which Urban himself was present, and in which his celebrated harangue was but the signal for the outpouring, through all Western Christendom, of the same chivalrous emotions by which France had been borne away under the rude eloquence of the Hermit. For the details of the expedition, we must refer to the article CRUSADES; our sole present concern being with the personal history of Peter. Of the enormous but undisciplined army which assembled from all parts of Europe, one portion was committed to his conduct; the other being under the command of a far more skilful leader, Walter the Pennyless. P. placed himself at their head, mounted upon his ass, with his coarse woollen mantle and his rude sandals. On the march through Hungary, they became involved in hostilities with the Hungarians, and suffered a severe defeat at Semlin, whence they proceeded with much difficulty to Constantinople. There the Emperor Alexis, filled with dismay at the want of discipline which they exhibited, was but too happy to give them supplies for their onward march; and near Nice, they encountered the army of the Sultan Solyman, from whom they suffered a terrible defeat. P. accompanied the subsequent expedition under Godfrey; but worn out by the delays and difficulties of the siege of Antioch, he was about to withdraw from the expedition, and was only retained in it by the influence of the other leaders, who foresaw the worst results from his departure. Accordingly, he had a share, although not marked by any signal distinction, in the siege and capture of the Holy City in 1099, and the closing incident of his history as a crusader was an address to the victorious army delivered on the Mount of Olives. He returned to Europe, and founded a monastery at Huy, in the diocese of Liege. In this monastery he died, July 7, 1115. PETER (DON PEDRO) THE CRUEL, King of Castile and Leon, was the son of Alfonso XI. and Maria of Portugal, and was born at Burgos, 30th August 1334. On his father's death (1350), P. succeeded to the throne without opposition, but left the whole exercise of power to his mother, Donna Maria, and Albuquerque, his father's prime minister and chancellor. But by the instigation of his mistress (afterwards his queen), Marie de Padilla, P. emancipated himself (1353) from the guidance of the queen-mother and her coadjutor Albuquerque, taking the reins of government in his own hands. His rule being much more impartial than that of the regency, obtained exceeding popularity, which was increased by his affable manner towards the mass of his subjects; but the strict justice with which he decided all causes between the rich and poor, the clergy and the laity, combined with a haughty and imperions carriage towards them, alienated from him the nobles and clergy. The plottings of Albuquerque, who had fled to Portugal, having culminated (1354) in an outbreak in the province of Estremadura, P. marched against the rebels, but was betrayed by his brother, Henry of Trastamare, and taken prisoner (December 1354). Popular opinion now declared loudly in his favour; and having escaped from prison, he found himself speedily at the head of a powerful army, with which, despite the excommunication of the pope, he speedily reduced his opponents to submission. But this episode in his career had a disastrous influence on his character for the rest of his life. Betrayed by his relatives, and even by his mother, he became suspicious of every one; and having experienced to the full the power of his enemies, he scrupled not as to the weapons to be employed against them. The rest of his reign was devoted to the destruction of the power of the great vassals, the establishment of his own authority on the ruins of their feudal tyranny, and long continued and bloody wars with the kingdoms of Aragon and Granada. As the people, however, were in general well and justly governed, it is not improbable that he might have retained his throne in spite of his numerous enemies, had not the heavy taxes which were imposed to maintain the cost of his long wars with Aragon and Granada dissipated his popularity. Henry, who had fled to France, now seizing the favourable opportunity, returned (1366) at the head of a body of exiles, backed by Bertrand du Guesclin (q. v.) with an army of mercenaries, PETER L and aided by Aragon, France, and the pope. P., however, by promising to England the sea-board of Biscay, with the provinces of Guipuzcoa and Logroño, and supplying a contribution of 56,000 florins, prevailed upon Edward the Black Prince to espouse his cause. Edward invaded Castile in the spring of 1367, totally defeated Henry and Du Guesclin at Navarette (April), taking the latter prisoner (releasing him almost immediately after), and speedily restoring P. to the throne. But the king disgusted his chivalrous ally by his cruelty to the vanquished, and paid no heed to his remonstrances; Edward accordingly repassed the Pyrenees, and left the misguided monarch to his fate. The whole kingdom groaned under his cruelties; rebellions broke out everywhere; and, in autumn 1367, Henry returned with 400 lances, the people immediately flocking to his standard. P.'s scanty and ill-disciplined forces were routed at Montiel (14th March 1369), and himself compelled to retire for safety within the town, whence he was treacherously decoyed and captured by Du Guesclin. He was carried to a tent, where a single combat took place between him and Henry, in which the latter would have been slain, had not some of his followers come to his aid, and slain the unfortunate P., 23d March 1369. PETER I., ALEXIEVITCH, Czar of Russia, generally denominated PETER THE GREAT, was the son of the Czar Alexei Mikailovitch by his second wife, Natalia Naryskine, and was born at Moscow, 9th June 1672. His father, Alexei, died in 1676, leaving the throne to his eldest son, Feodor, P.'s half-brother. This prince, however, died in 1682 without issue, after naming P. as his successor, to the exclusion of his own full brother, Ivan. This step immediately provoked an insurrection, fomented by the children of the Czar Alexei's first marriage, the most prominent among whom was the grand-duchess Sophia, a woman of great ability and energy, but of unbounded ambition. Disdaining the seclusion customary among the females of the royal family, she shewed herself to the Strelitz (q.v.), excited them to fury by an ingenious story of the assassination of her brother Ivan, and then let them loose on the supporters of P.'s claims. After a carnage of three days, during which more than sixty members of the most noble families of Russia were massacred, she succeeded in obtaining the coronation (July 1682) of Ivan and P. as joint rulers, and her own appointment as regent. Up to P.'s coronation his education had been greatly neglected, but after this time he became acquainted with Lieutenant Franz Timmerman, a native of Strasburg, who gave him lessons in the military art and in mathematics; after which he had the good fortune to fall under the guidance of Lefort (q. v.), a Genoese, who initiated him into the sciences and arts of civilisation, and by shewing him how much Muscovy was in these respects behind the rest of Europe, influenced the whole of his future career. Lefort also formed a small military company out of the young men of noble family who attended P., and caused P. himself to pass, by regular steps, from the lowest (that of drummer) to the highest grade in it, render. ing him all the while amenable to strict discipline. This course of training, in all probability, saved P. from becoming the mere savage despot, which his brutal and passionate disposition, and indomitable energy inclined him to be; it also protected him from the jealousy of his half-sister, the regent Sophia, who, seeing him absorbed in military exercises and other studies, imagined that he had wholly given himself up to amusement. She, however, soon discovered her error, for P., contrary to her wishes, married (February 1689), by his mother's advice, Eudoxia Feodorowna, of the family of Lapoukin; and in October of the same year, called upon his sister to resign the government. In the ensuing contest, P. was at first worsted, and compelled to flee for his life; but he was speedily joined by the foreigners in the Russian service, with a Scotchman named Patrick Gordon (q. v.) and the Swiss Lefort at their head; and the Strelitz, who were his antag onist's mainstay, flocking to his standard, she resigned the contest, and was shut up in a convent, whence, till her death, in 1704, she did not cease to annoy him by her intrigues. On October 11, 1689, P. made his public entry into Moscow, where he was met by Ivan, to whom he gave the nominal supremacy and precedence, reserving the sole exercise of power for himself. Ivan only enjoyed his puppet sovereignty till 1696. Though P. was all his life under the dominion of ungovernable passions and sensual habits, yet during great part of his reign he was so exclusively engaged in projecting and carrying out his schemes for the regeneration of Russia, that his gross animal nature had little opportunity of displaying itself. His first care, on assuming the government, was to form an army disciplined according to European tactics, in which labour he was greatly aided by the valuable instructions of Gordon and Lefort, both of whom were military men, and had served in some of the best disciplined armies of Western Europe. He also laboured to create a navy, both armed and mercantile; but at this period Russia presented few facilities for such an attempt, for she was shut out from the Baltic by Sweden and Poland (the former of whom possessed Finland, St Petersburg (then called Ingria), and the Baltio provinces), and from the Black Sea by Turkey, which, extending along the whole of the north coast, had reduced that sea to the rank of an inland lake; leaving only the White Sea and the Arctic Ocean, with the solitary port of Archangel, available for the Russian navy. P. thinking the possession of a portion of the Black Sea would best supply the required facilities of accessible sea-board and port, declared war against Turkey, and took (1696) the city of Azof at the mouth of the Don, after a long siege, which the ineffective condition of his newlydisciplined army compelled him to convert into a blockade. Skilled engineers, architects, and artil lerymen were now invited from Austria, Venice, Prussia, and Holland; ships were constructed; the army further improved both in arms and discipline; and many of the young nobility ordered to travel in foreign countries, chiefly in Holland and Italy, for the purpose of acquiring such information as might be useful in the modernisation and civilisation of their country. They were ordered to take special notice of all matters in connection with ship-building and naval equipments. Others were sent to Germany to study the military art. Not quite satisfied with this arrangement, P. was eager to see for himself the countries for which civilisation had done so much, and which had so highly developed the military art, science, trade, and industrial pur suits; so after repressing a revolt of the Strelitz (February 1697), and dispersing them among the various provinces, he intrusted the reins of government to Prince Romonadofski, assisted by a council of three, and left Russia in April 1697, in the train of an embassy of which Lefort was the head. guise of an inferior official of the embassy he visited the three Baltic provinces, Prussia, and Hanover, reaching Amsterdam, where, and subsequently at Saardam, he worked for some time as a common shipwright. His curiosity was excessive; he demanded explanations of everything which he did not understand; and to his practice of ship-building In the |