PATMORE, COVENTRY KERSEY DIGHTON (1823-1896).—­Poet, s. of Peter George P., also an author, b. at Woodford, Essex, was in the printed book department of the British Museum.  He pub. Tamerton Church Tower (1853), and between 1854 and 1862 the four poems which, combined, form his masterpiece, The Angel in the House, a poetic celebration of married love.  In 1864 he entered the Church of Rome.  Thereafter he pub. The Unknown Eros (1877), Amelia (1878), and Rod, Root, and Flower (1895), meditations chiefly on religious subjects.  His works are full of graceful and suggestive thought, but occasionally suffer from length and discursiveness.  He was successful in business matters, and in character was energetic, masterful, and combative.  He numbered Tennyson and Ruskin among his friends, was associated with the pre-Raphaelites, and was a contributor to their organ, the Germ.

PATTISON, MARK (1813-1884).—­Scholar and biographer, b. at Hornby, Yorkshire, s. of a clergyman, ed. privately and at Oxf., where in 1839 he became Fellow of Lincoln Coll., and acquired a high reputation as a tutor and examiner.  At first strongly influenced by Newman and the Tractarian movement, he ultimately abandoned that school.  In 1851, failing to be elected head of his coll., he threw up his tutorship, and devoted himself to severe study, occasionally writing on educational subjects in various reviews.  In 1861, however, he attained the object of his ambition, being elected Rector of Lincoln Coll.  In 1883 he dictated a remarkable autobiography, coming down to 1860.  In 1875 he had pub. a Life of Isaac Casaubon, and he left materials for a Life of Scaliger, which he had intended to be his magnum opus.  He also wrote Milton for the English Men of Letters Series, and produced an ed. of his sonnets.

PAULDING, JAMES KIRKE (1779-1860).—­Novelist, etc., b. in the state of New York, was chiefly self-educated.  He became a friend of W. Irving, and was part author with him of Salmagundi—­a continuation of which by himself proved a failure.  Among his other writings are John Bull and Brother Jonathan (1812), a satire, The Dutchman’s Fireside (1831), a romance which attained popularity, a Life of Washington (1835), and some poems.

PAYN, JAMES (1830-1898).—­Novelist, s. of an official in the Thames Commission, ed. at Eton, Woolwich, and Camb.  He was a regular contributor to Household Words and to Chambers’s Journal, of which he was ed. 1859-74, and in which several of his works first appeared; he also ed. the Cornhill Magazine 1883-96.  Among his novels—­upwards of 60 in number—­may be mentioned Lost Sir Massingberd, The Best of Husbands, Walter’s Word, By Proxy (1878), A Woman’s Vengeance, Carlyon’s Year, Thicker than Water, A Trying Patient, etc.  He also wrote a book of poems and a volume of literary reminiscences.