The Nuttall Encyclopaedia eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 2,685 pages of information about The Nuttall Encyclopaedia.

The Nuttall Encyclopaedia eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 2,685 pages of information about The Nuttall Encyclopaedia.

PANSLAVISM, the name given to a movement for union of all the Slavonic races in one nationality, a project which lags heavily owing to the jealousy on the part of one section or another.

PANTAGRUEL, the principal character of one of the two great works of Rabelais, and named after him; he and his father Gargantua figured as two enormous giants, being personifications of royalty with its insatiable lust of territory and power.

PANTHEISM, the doctrine or creed which affirms the immanency of God in nature, or that God is within nature, but ignores or denies His transcendency, or that He is above nature; distinguished from deism, which denies the former but affirms the latter, from theism, which affirms both, and from atheism, which denies both.

PANTHEON, a temple in Rome, first erected by Agrippa, son-in-law of Augustus, circular in form, 150 ft. in height, with niches all round for statues of the gods, to whom in general it was dedicated; it is now a church, and affords sepulture to illustrious men.  Also a building in Paris, originally intended to be a church in honour of the patron saint of Paris, but at the time of the Revolution converted into a receptacle for the ashes of the illustrious dead, Mirabeau being its first occupant, and bearing this inscription, Aux grands hommes la patrie reconnaissant; it was subsequently appropriated to other uses, but under the third republic it became again a resting-place for the ashes of eminent men.

PANTOGRAPH, the name given to a contrivance for copying a drawing or a design on an enlarged or a reduced scale.

PANURGE, one of the principal characters in the “Pantagruel” of Rabelais, an exceedingly crafty knave, a libertine, and a coward.

PANZA, SANCHO, Don Quixote’s squire, a squat, paunchy peasant endowed with rude common-sense, but incapable of imagination.

PAOLI, PASQUALE DE, a Corsican patriot; sought to achieve the independence of his country, but was defeated by the Genoese, aided by France, in 1769; took refuge in England, where he was well received and granted a pension; returned to Corsica and became lieutenant-general under the French republic, raised a fresh insurrection, had George III. proclaimed king, but failed to receive the viceroyalty, and returned to England, where he died a disappointed man (1726-1807).

PAPAL STATES, a territory in the N. of Italy extending irregularly from Naples to the Po, at one time subject to the temporal sovereignty of the Pope, originating in a gift to his Holiness of Pepin the Short, and taking shape as such about the 11th century, till in the 16th and 17th centuries the papal power began to assert itself in the general politics of Europe, and after being suppressed for a time by Napoleon it was formally abolished by annexation of the territory to the crown of Sardinia in 1870.

PAPHOS, the name of two ancient cities in the SW. of Cyprus; the older (now Kyklia) was a Phoenician settlement, in which afterwards stood a temple of Venus, who was fabled to have sprung from the sea-foam close by; the other, 8 m. westward, was the scene of Paul’s interview with Sergius Paulus and encounter with Elymas.

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