ments, the great foundling hospital, in which about 5000 children are nursed and educated, and in which the mother is permitted to lie-in without charges, and then to leave or take away her child, whether legitimate or not, without being questioned as to her name and station. With this is connected the great pawn-house, in which loans are made, even on real property. In all the institutions for instruction (as is also the case with the high schools throughout the empire), Russian, German and French, and, in many, English, are taught: Latin and Greek are also publicly taught; and the young Russian shows a decided taste for dancing, music and painting. There are eleven public libraries: the most important is the imperial, containing 300,000 volumes and 12,000 manuscripts. Among the palaces should be mentioned the splendid Michailoff palace, built by Paul, near the summer-garden, at an expense of 10,000,000 roubles; the Taurian palace, with its admirable gardens, built and occupied by Potemkin, and much enlarged and embellished by Catharine during his absence. The roofs of all the palaces, and most of the houses, are covered with thin iron plates, varnished black or green. The summer residences also deserve to be seen on account of their natural and artificial beauties. Petersburg contains 115 churches for the established worship, and 33 for other rites. The most splendid are Isaac's church, and that of Our Lady of Kazan: the latter is of great dimensions: the nave and cupola are supported by 56 granite columns, with bronze capitals: the pavement is of different kinds of marble, the steps to the choir of porphyry, with a silver balustrade. Among the towers, the most remarkable are that of the admiralty, and that of the fortress, of a pyramidal form, and more than half covered with plates of pure gold. Public worship is performed in fifteen languages, and according to eleven different rites. Organs and other instrumental music are not heard in the Russian churches, but singing is much cultivated. There are no seats in them. The worshippers come and go at pleasure, and are crowded together without distinction of rank, each, as his feelings dictate, crossing himself, falling upon his knees, touching his forehead to the ground, and murmuring, for the hundredth time, Hospodin pomillny (Lord, have mercy upon me). The Lutherans, Calvinists, Armenians, &c., have churches, and there is one Mohammedan house of prayer. The most remarkable monasteries are that of Alexander New

skoi (q. v.), the residence of the metropolitan, and which contains, in a silver tomb, the bones of the saint, and the Smolnui nunnery. The commerce and navigation are very extensive: more than 1100 vessels, from all parts of Europe and from America, arrive yearly. Vessels which draw much water cannot come up to Petersburg, but unload by means of lighters at Cronstadt. (q. v.) Provisions are in general very high. As sources of amusement, we may mention the grand opera and other theatres; in winter, sleigh-riding, and, in summer, sailing on the Neva; sliding down artificial elevations, &c., &c. The climate is very severe the sleighing continues nearly five months. (See Russia.) In the neighborhood are several imperial palaces, such as Peterhof, Kammenoi Ostrov, Pawlovsk and Zarskoi Zelo.

PETER'S PENCE; a tax which England paid, from the eighth century down to the time of Henry VIII, to the pope. The Anglo-Saxon king Ira is said to have first granted it to the pope, in 725, in order to maintain a seminary of English ecclesiastics in Rome, and to keep in order the tombs of St. Peter and St. Paul in that city. It was collected every year on St. Peter's day, one penny on every house, and considerably exceeded the income of the kings of England in the thirteenth century.

PETERWARDEIN, or PETERWARADIN (anciently Acunum); a town of Sclavonia, capital of a military district (see Military Districts), on the Danube, strongly fortified, 38 miles north-west of Belgrade, 216 south-south-east of Vienna; lon. 19° 37′ E.; lat. 45° 16′ N.; population, 3847. It consists of the upper fortress, overlooking the Danube, the lower fortress, the horn work, and the suburbs. It is remarkable for the defeat of the Turks by prince Eugene in 1716. (See Eugene.)

PETHION, OF PETION DE VILLENEUVE, Jerome, a French revolutionary statesman, originally an advocate at Chartres, was chosen deputy, by the tiers état of that city, to the states-general. The character, conduct and talents of Péthion have been variously represented; but his great influence over public affairs is a proof that he was not destitute of ability. In the early part of his career, he acted with Mirabeau, but did not join in such of his measures as were calculated to impede the extension of liberty and equality of rights. In October, 1789, he was appointed a member of the first committee of general safety, and, December 4, 1790, was elected president of the national assembly. In

June following, he became president of the criminal tribunal of Paris, and, together with Barnave and Latour-Maubourg, was appointed commissioner to attend the return of the monarch. He was elected mayor of Paris, November 14, 1791, and, in consequence of his implication in the attack on the Tuileries, June 20, 1792, was suspended from his functions, July 6, but restored by the assembly on the 13th. His behavior on the 10th of August has, by some, been interpreted as the result of weakness, and by others as the effect of design, to avoid betraying his character as an abettor of the violence. Being nominated a deputy from the department of Eure and Loire to the convention which met in September, he became the first president of that assembly. Soon after the death of the king, Pethion was accused of having contributed to the massacres of September; but against this charge he successfully defended himself. He now, however, became the object of jealousy to Robespierre, and was included in the proscription of the Girondists, May 31, 1793. (See Girondists.) He made his escape, with some other deputies of the same party, to the department of Calvados, where they in vain endeavored to avail themselves of the insurrections against the terrorists. Some time after, the body of Péthion, with that of Buzot, one of his confederates, was found in a field, in the department of the Gironde, half devoured by wolves, and it was supposed that he had perished from hunger. His works were printed in 1793, in 4 vols., 8vo.

PETION, Alexandre, president of the southern parts of the island of Hayti, was a mulatto, and received his education in the military school of Paris. Being a man of cultivated understanding and attractive manners, and moreover well instructed in the art of war, he served in the French, and afterwards in the Haytian armies, with success and reputation. He was in high credit as a skilful engineer, in which capacity he rendered the most essential services to Toussaint and Dessalines, from whom he received many marks of attention, and rapid advancement in his profession. He succeeded Clervaux in the government of Port au Prince, and the command of the mulattoes, and held this post at the time of Dessalines' death. Petion was highly respected by the people for his talents and virtues; and upon the dissolution of the government by the death of Dessalines, the people of color rallied around

him as their chief, in preference to Christophe, who became the leader of the blacks. Christophe, deeming himself entitled to the undivided succession of Toussaint and Dessalines, the two chiefs took up arms, and had many rencounters, in one of which particularly, a pitched battle, fought January 1, 1807, Petion was defeated and pursued by Christophe to the very gates of Port au Prince. This campaign secured to Christophe a decided and unquestioned ascendency in the northern part of the island, where his chief strength lay. Still Petion's personal popularity, and the hostility of the mulattoes to the negroes, enabled him to maintain his ground at the south; and a bloody war ensued between the rival chieftains, of several years' duration, favorable, in its issue, to Christophe on the whole, but not sufficiently so to dispossess Petion of his power. Wearied, at length, of their unavailing struggle, both parties tacitly suspended the contest, and devoted themselves to the improvement of their respective dominions. Petion's government took the form of republican institutions, consisting of himself, as president for life, and a legislative body so constituted as to be completely under his influence. Pêtion was a man of fine talents and of honorable feelings and intentions, but not well adapted for the station which he was called upon to fill. The Haytians, just liberated from absolute slavery, without the education, habits of thought, moral energy and rectitude of character, which are necessary in a government perfectly republican, stood in need of a ruler less kind, gentle and humane than Petion. In consequence of this, his people relaxed in their attention to agriculture, his finances become disorganized, and his country impoverished; and, disheartened at a state of things which he saw no means of remedying, he sank into a state of despondency, which ended in voluntary death. His final illness lasted only eight days, during which he resolutely refused all remedies, and every species of aliment, even to water, dying, at length, of mere inanition and despondency. His physicians, upon examining his body after death, found all its functions perfectly sound, and without any trace of malady. He died March 29, 1818, and was succeeded by president Boyer.-Malo, Haiti (published 1825); Franklin's Hayti, ch. 8.

PETITION, in politics. The right of petitioning is indispensable to complete the constitutional or representative system. In absolute governments, and in those

and woods of Vaucluse, where he spent the principal part of his time in deep study. (See Epistle 116, and his sonnets and canzoni.) This love, however, did not extinguish all others; he had a natural son, who died of the plague in 1361, and a daughter, who was married to a nobleman. The news of Laura's death, which reached him in Verona, April 8, 1348, was a severe blow to him; yet he did not cease to celebrate her. In his old age, however, he declared that he was ashamed of his youthful infatuation, and that he regretted having written his amatory poems. Yet he did not censure his love so much as its excess, and as he advanced in years, he became a contemner of the female sex. The account of his early passion is to be found chiefly in his Latin epistles, his treatise entitled My Secret, or On the Contempt of the World, and the poem the Triumph of Death. After a lapse of 500 years, we still enjoy the fruits of his love in those admirable sonnets and canzoni which paint the joys and sorrows, the admiration and desire, and all the tender thoughts and emotions, of a poetic and glowing love. Petrarch is truly the prince of love poets; some of his poems may be censured for their monotony and the traces of the age in which they were written, for cold thoughts and allusions, false wit, a tasteless play upon words, and far-fetched epithets. But the greater part of them will ever be looked upon as among the most perfect masterpieces of lyric poetry. His poems contain many difficult passages, but numerous annotators have undertaken to explain them; as Gesualdo, Castelvetro, Velutello, Tassoni, and others. They have been published more than 200 times. His Latin works were printed at Basle, 1496 and 1581, and often separately. Petrarch was likewise constant in his friendship. This we know from collections of his letters, which are likewise useful for their historical information. He was religious after the fashion of his age, venerated what was esteemed sacred by his contemporaries, observed fasts, bequeathed a portion of his property to the churches, revered saints, especially the Virgin Mary (to whom he wrote a canzonet full of humility and devotion), and relics. If we add to these characteristic traits, his gratitude to his instructers, faithfulness to his patrons, and universal benevolence, we can easily account for the esteem which he enjoyed; especially when we remember that he had a pleasing exterior to recommend his merits. In

The

his youth, he was well-formed, lively, fond of the most beautiful dresses (see Var. Epist., ix), and vain, and he played on the lute. His diligence was very great, and his talents brilliant. events of the latter part of his life are his journey to Rome to attend the jubilee; the restoration of his property by the city of Florence; his invitation to the chair of professor in the new university in that city, which he refused; his visit to Italy, after the death of Clement VI; the distinguished reception which he met from Galeazzo Visconti, at Milan, and Charles IV, at Mantua; the long desired removal of the papal chair to Rome, under Urban, in 1367, which was brought about by his influence; and his mediation of the peace between the Carrarese and the Venetians, in 1373. He died in 1374, as is supposed on the night of July 18, in the village of Arquà, near Padua, where he had retired to end his days. He was found dead early in the morning, in his library, with his head resting on a book. He was interred, with great pomp, at Arquà, although he had forbidden all ceremony. His valuable library he bequeathed to the republic of Venice; but no portion of it is now to be found. The account of his life is derived chiefly from his own writings-his Letters, his Secret, and his Address to Posterity on his life and character. The best of his biographers are the abbé de Sade (a descendant of his Laura), Tiraboschi, Baldelli, Fernow, Wismayr, Ugo Foscolo, Woodhouslee, Ginguené, &c.

PETREL (thalassidroma); a genus of oceanic birds, well known to seamen by the name of Mother Carey's chickens. They are found in every part of the world, on the ocean, at great distances from land, generally at twilight, or in stormy weather. They feed on small marine animals, and seeds of sea-weeds, and appear exceedingly fond of fat or grease, for which, and for the animals put in motion, they will follow in the wake of ships for great distances. They breed in rocks adjoining the sea, forming their nests in cavities; the female lays two eggs. They fly rapidly, and generally close to the water; and, when in pursuit of food, they suspend themselves by extending their wings, and appear to run on the surface of the water. Buffon says it is from this circumstance that they are called petrels, after the apostle Peter, who walked n the water. The appearance of these birds is considered by seamen to presage a storm, and it is thought peculiarly un