M. de Blainville remarks that he only knows this genus from the characteristic and short description given by Péron and Lesueur. He doubts whether this Medusa has not a mouth; for he thinks that the centre of the reunion of the four large trunks of the canals ought to be regarded as a stomach. He further inquires whether the individual figured was complete. He says that M. Lesueur informed him that there was a membrane on the lower surface, and he inquires whether this was not perhaps some remains of the stomachal cavity. Cuvier united this genus with the Geryonia. Eschscholtz places it, as we have seen, in his family Berenicida, and unites Euryale with it. Charybdæa. Generic Character. - Body hemispherical, subconical, or even semi-elliptical, furnished on its circumference with foliaceous subtentacular lobes, hollowed below by a great stomachal excavation with an aperture as large as itself. Example, Charybda periphylla (Pér. and Les.). the animal complete; b, a portion thereof. Tima flavilabris, Favonia Octonema, Lymnorea triedra, a, the disk seen from above. Section V Pelagia. Generic Character-Body subhemispherical, lobated, auriculated, furnished on its circumference with a few tentaculiform cirrhi; eight inferior apertures at the extremity of a fistulous? peduncle provided with four very strong and foliaceous arms. Four ovaries. Stomach with cæciform appendages. Example, Pelagia Labiche, Esch. (Cyan. Labiche, Quoy and Gaim.). Generic Character.-Body circular, hemispherical, fes tooned and provided with at least twenty-four tentaculiform Chrysaora lutea. a, fourth of the disk or umbrella seen from below; b, disk without its appendages, Rhizostoma Cuvieri, FOSSIL IMPRESSIONS OF MEDUSE? Mr. Babbage, in his paper On Impressions in Sandstone resembling those of Horses' Feet,' December, 1836, in which he noticed those in the channel of a stream on the extensive moor called Pwll-y-Duon, about seven miles from Merthyr Tydvil, to which his attention was drawn by Mr. Guest of Dowlais, and the analogous casts in the old red-sandstone of Forfarshire, there called Kelpies' feet, described some observations recently made by Mr. Lyell, on impressions left by Medusa on the rippled sand near Dundee. On removing the gelatinous body of the animal, a circular space was exposed, not rippled, but having around half the border a depression of a horse-shoe form. These marks however were not considered by Mr. Lyell as identical with those called Kelpies' feet, but merely so far analogous as to invite further observations, and to make it desirable to possess drawings of the impressions which different species of Meduse leave when thrown by the tide upon a beach of soft mud or sand. (Geol. Proc., vol. ii.) PULMONELLA. [SYNOICUM.] of PULP is a name given in vegetable physiology and bo tany to such parts of plants as are semifluid. This substance appears to the naked eye as a mucilaginous unorga nised mass of the nature of a secretion; but it is in reality composed of very thin-sided cells which have little power cohesion, and secrete in their interior a greater abundance of fluid than is usual. Pulp may therefore be regarded as young and imperfectly formed tissue filled with the secretions peculiar to the species. It is also in some cases, perhaps in all cases, mixed with an abundance of cinenchyma, or laticiferous tissue, which passes through it in all directions in the form of the most delicate ramifications. The pulp of Generic Character.-Body circular, hemispherical, pro- the grape affords a good example of this. To the naked vided on its circumference with lobes or festoons intermin-eye it appears to be nothing more than a fleshy homogenegled with auricles, largely excavated below, with four semiTunar orifices, produced by four roots of insertion of a considerable pedunculated mass, afterwards divided into eight very complex brachideous appendages furnished with fibrillary suckers, without a median prolongation. Four ovaries, in the shape of a cross. Stomachal cavity very large and Rhizostoma. vascular at its circumference. Example, Rhizosioma Cuvieri. M. de Blainville separates the genus into two divisions. A ous mass that may be compared to half-consolidated gum; but under the microscope it is found to be a congeries of oval transparent bags turgid with fluid and very easily ruptured; treated with iodine, they lose their transparency in some measure, and acquire a brown colour, when their limits become very distinct. The same re-agent stains still browner the vessels of the latex, whose course and position are thus brought clearly into view. In a few minutes however the colouring fades away in the latter, till they become as indistinct as they were before the iodine was applied: it is therefore necessary that the observation should be made as soon as the iodine has seized upon the latex or its Species having a peduncle of insertion for the root, with tubes. radical appendages, besides those of the arms. PULPIT. This term affords a striking instance of the great change of meaning and application which words frequently undergo, for, exclusively of the Latin termination, it is identical with Pulpitum, which signified that part of the Roman stage (distinguished from the orchestra) on which the actors recited and performed their parts. The French Pupitre and the English Pulpit both come from the same the pulpits, one for the reader, the other for the preacher, placed on opposite sides of the chancel; whereby architectural symmetry at least is kept up; yet this has been objected to as a reprehensible departure from strict usage, and likewise an absurdity, though if there be absurdity in having two pulpits when only one is required at a time, the absurdity is the same whether they be united together, one above the other, or placed singly. The two might very properly be combined, were the pulpit to be made a central object in a church, by being so placed at the altar-end of the chancel; but though it has occasionally been adopted, such mode is still more strongly objected to as being offensively indecorous, because in such case the pulpit must be before the altar. It might however be at such distance from it as not to obtrude upon it; and as to indecorum, when no irreverence is intended, but merely convenience is consulted, the impropriety becomes excusable, such situation being certainly the most advantageous of any, because the preacher is then both heard and seen more distinctly by the whole congregation than when he is stationed on one side of the church. PULSE. [HEART.] source, but are dissimilar in signification; the former meaning merely a reading-desk, and Chaire (Cathedra) being the term that corresponds with our English one. The Ambo of the early Christians appears to have been different both in form and purpose from pulpits afterwards used for preaching, it being rather a low platform on which parts of the service were sung or recited. The most antient pulpits now existing are supposed to be those in S. Lorenzo fuor delle Mura and S. Clemente at Rome; and these and other early pulpits of the same kind are of marble, with inlaid or mosaic compartments. In the church of S. Lorenzo at Florence, and several other modern basilicas, there are two pulpits, one on each side of the nave. Great cost both of material and workmanship was frequently bestowed on pulpits; and some of them rank among the most celebrated monuments of art of their period. Niccola and Giovanni Pisano [PISANO], Donatello, Benedetto da Majano, and other eminent sculptors, employed their talents upon such works. The pulpit in the baptistery of Pisa, by Niccola, is hexagonal, and supported on seven columns, one at each angle and a central one. Giovanni Pisano executed that in the nave of the Duomo at Pisa, besides which there are two others in the same church, on the opposite sides of the choir. The Pergamo of Santa Croce at Florence, by B. da Majano, is greatly extolled by Vasari for the beauty of its reliefs and sculptures. The two pergami in S. Lorenzo at Florence, similarly placed opposite each other, are the work of Donatello; and of the mastery of composition displayed in their reliefs some idea may be formed from the specimen given of them in Cicognara's Storia della Scultura. Not-blished. withstanding the richness of such pulpits, and their elaborate execution, their general forms are not always the most pleasing or appropriate. For a long time the pulpit appears to have been treated as an architectural feature of the interior, being constructed, if not of marble, of the same material as the rest. Among numerous other examples of Gothic stone-pulpits may be mentioned that in the nave of Strasburg cathedral, which is spoken of by Dr. Dibdin in terms of unqualified admiration, yet it is too much of a jumbled mass of ornament, and the whole of the canopy is in exceedingly bad taste, though not quite so vicious as that afterwards displayed in many Roman Catholic pulpits whose canopies are made in the form of clouds, curtains, palm-branches, and similar extravagancies. One of the most celebrated as a performance of art is the magnificent oak pulpit in the nave of St. Gudule, at Brussels; the whole is elaborately carved, and the pulpit itself is supported by figures representing Adam and Eve expelled from Paradise by the Angel. PULTAWA. [POLTAWA.] PULTENEY, WILLIAM, Earl of Bath, was born in 1682. He was the eldest son of a father of the same names, whose father, Sir William, had represented the city of Westminster in parliament with some distinction. The surname is supposed to have been taken from Pulteney in Leicestershire, where the family had been antiently esta Young Pulteney, having been sent first to Westminster school and then to Christ Church, Oxford, afterwards travelled on the Continent, and on his return home was brought into parliament for the borough of Hedon in Yorkshire. This appears to have been in 1705. He was indebted for his seat to his guardian, Henry Guy, Esq., formerly secretary to the treasury, who afterwards left him a legacy of 40,000l. and landed property to the value of 500l. a year. Pulteney besides derived a considerable estate from his father, and he also received a large portion with his wife, Anna Maria, daughter of John Gumley, Esq., of Isleworth. All this wealth he increased by the practice throughout his life of a very rigid economy, which,' says Coxe, in his Memoirs of Walpole,' 'his enemies called avarice, but which did not prevent him from performing many acts of charity and beneficence.' From his entry into the House of Commons, Pulteney attached himself to the Whig party, which was that of his family. He continued to sit for Hedon throughout the reign of Anne; but his name does not appear in the reported parliamentary debates during that reign. Coxe however states that he spoke for the first time on the Place Bill,' which he warmly supported. Place Bills, or proposals for excluding placemen from parliament, were brought forward in the House of Commons almost every session in this reign. Coxe also tells us that he distinguished himself on the question of the prosecution of Sacheverell; that he had made himself so obnoxious to the Tories, that when they came into power, in 1710, they revenged themselves upon the young orator by removing his uncle, John Pulteney, Esq., from the board of trade; that during the last four years of Queen Anne he not only took a principal share in the debates, but was admitted to the most important secrets of his party; and that on the prosecution of Walpole, in 1712, Pulteney defended his friend in a very elegant speech. He certainly was looked upon by this time as one of the leading men of his party. Of stone-pulpits we have few remaining in this country; but there is one in Bristol cathedral, and another in Worcester, drawings and details of which latter are given in Pugin's 'Gothic Specimens.' It was originally erected in the nave, near the west end, but has been removed to the north side of the choir, and has been greatly disfigured by modern beautifying,' a flat sounding-board having been added to it in the shape of a bed-tester with paltry little scalloped festoons.' Even the pulpit itself is not remarkable for the elegance of its details, although its general form is good. This and another subject represented in the same work are instances of what may be termed oriel pulpits, being made to project after the fashion of an oriel [ORIEL] from a pier or wall, and similarly corbelled below, instead of being supported from the ground. The second of the above-mentioned examples is in fact a small oriel in an angle of the outer court of Magdalen College, Oxford; and another, still more antient and curious-and we may add, more beautiful-is that at Beaulieu, Hants, which projects On the accession of George I. Pulteney was appointed from an elegant open Gothic arch, and is supported, not on secretary-at-war; but when Walpole resigned in 1717, Pula corbelled and moulded oriel-stool, but on a short reversed teney also gave up his office. Soon after this however a spire, whose angles are decorated with small pillar-shafts, coolness took place between the two friends, which was not and the sides between them with foliage: a representation removed by the appointment of Pulteney to the valuable is given in the plates to the Glossary of Architecture.' sinecure of cofferer of the household on Walpole's resumpBesides pulpits of this kind in the courts and cloisters of tion of office in 1720; but it was not till 1725 that Pulteney religious houses, there were others called Preaching-openly threw himself into the ranks of opposition, and began Crosses, from which sermons were delivered in the open air: Paul's Cross is a celebrated and well-known instance. At the present day very few of the pulpits in our English churches have any beauty of form or character, but are frequently tasteless excrescences, encumbered with steps, reader's-desk, &c., and with respect to design, they are mere carpenter and joiner's work. Of late years the practice has been introduced of having two distinct that course of bitter and incessant attack upon the minister, which did not cease till he had driven Walpole from power in 1742. Nor did he confine his exertions to his place in parliament; out of doors he entered into a close union with the party of which Bolingbroke was the head, and became the principal assistant of that writer in his paper called the Craftsman.' By his shining powers as a debater also, and the flaming patriotism with which he filled his harangues as leader of the opposition, ne raised himself to the height of public favour, and was for some years the most popular man in the kingdom. When the administration of Walpole was at last overthrown, all the authority of the state seemed for a moment to lie at the feet of Pulteney; and he actually named the new ministry, taking to himself a seat in the cabinet without any office. But the arrangements that were made had in fact been all, it may be said, dictated by Walpole, who still retained his influence with the king, and secretly arranged with his majesty the course into which Pulteney was to be seduced with the view of destroying the popularity which was his chief strength. The composition of the new cabinet disappointed the expectations both of partisans and of the public; everything wore the appearance of its apparent maker having in fact made a compact and a compromise with Walpole; one considerable section of his late supporters (that headed by the Pitts and the Grenvilles) was wholly overlooked in the distribution of places; and the suspicion and sense of injury awakened by all this burst into a universal storm of indignation when, after the lapse of a few months, Pulteney walked into the House of Lords as earl of Bath. From this moment the late popular idol became quite insignificant. However he lived till 1764, chiefly occupied in nursing his private fortune, but still sometimes taking part in the debates and in public affairs. In the year 1760 he published A Letter to Two Great Men' (Mr. Pitt and the Duke of Newcastle), in which Horace Walpole, perhaps from no better authority than his own suspicion and spite, says he was assisted by his chaplain Douglas (the same who afterwards became successively bishop of Carlisle and of Salisbury). Walpole adds, It contained a plan of the terms which his lordship thought we ought to demand if we concluded a peace; it was as little regarded by the persons it addressed as a work of Mr. Pitt's would have been, if, outliving his patriotism, power, and character, he should twenty years after have emerged in a pamphlet.' (Mems. of George II.,' ii. 412.) However the caustic annalist allows that it pleased in coffee-houses more than it deserved.' Pulteney left no family, and his peerage became extinct on his death; but the title of baroness Bath was conferred in 1792, and afterwards that of countess of Bath in 1803, on Henrietta Laura Pulteney, daughter of Frances Pulteney, and Sir William Johnson, Bart. (who took the name of Pulteney), and great-granddaughter through her mother of a younger brother of the first earl's father, according to Coxe (who had his information from Bishop Douglas), or (according to other authorities) daughter of the earl's own younger brother Henry. This lady, who inherited the earl's fortune, died also without issue in 1808, and the title is now again extinct. PULVINITES. [MALLEACEA, vol. xiv., p. 836; MARGARITACEA.] PUMICE. [LAVA; VOLCANO.] PUMP. [AIR-PUMP; HYDRAULICS.] PUMPKIN is the vulgar name of the fruit of the Cucurbita maxima, a plant whose native country is not certainly known, but which is probably a variety of C. Pepo, a species inhabiting the Levant. It is, as is well known, an annual plant, sending forth many long succulent angular rough shoots, bearing leaves and flowers something like those of the cucumber. Its fruit is often of enormous size, specimens having been produced in this country weighing 220 lbs., and in hotter countries they are still larger. This kind of fruit is however only furnished by the variety called the yellow Potiron; in other varieties it is much smaller. The seed of the pumpkin should be raised in a frame, in a garden pot, after the same manner as the cucumber, and planted out upon a dunghill, or in any well-manured soil, as soon as the frosts are gone. Its young tender leaves and shoots constitute the best of all spinach; and the fruit, when ripe, is used for soup, or is baked with pears as an ingredient in tarts; when young, it may also be boiled and brought to table like vegetable marrow. PUN. A pun has been defined by Addison (Spectator, No. 61) to be a conceit arising from the use of two words that agree in the sound but differ in the sense.' Sometimes however the pun is effected by the employment of only one word, which is susceptible of a double application; as when one who had undertaken to pun upon any subject that should be given him, on being desired to make a pun on the king, answered that the king was no subject. Sometimes too the sound that is thus made to convey two ideas at once not an entire word, but only a syllable. The definition moreover to be complete ought to have explained in what the effect of the conceit consists. It appears to be, as we have just hinted, in the novelty and unexpectedness of the signification or application presented by the pun-a novelty which always at least produces surprise, and often the livelier titillation of a grotesque or otherwise ludicrous image. Sometimes, though rarely, a pun has risen into a far higher region than the ludicrous; as for instance when Burke (or whoever else it was) exclaimed, 'What is (m)ajest(y) when deprived of its externals but a jest?" So, in his account of his ramble through London, in the Spectator,' No. 454, Steele tells us that when he looked down from one of the windows on the first floor of the Exchange upon the area below, where all the several voices lost their distinction and rose up in a confused humming,' a reflection occurred to him that could not have come into the mind of any but of one a little too studious; for,' he adds, 'I said to myself, with a kind of pun in thought, what nonsense is all the hurry of this world to those who are above it?' It may be observed that both these last-mentioned puns arise not out of the similar sound of two words, but out of the double application of one-externals in the former, above in the latter. A sketch of the history of puns has been given by Addison in a well known paper in the 'Spectator' (No. 61), in which he traces the existence of the practice from the time of Aristotle downward. The figures of speech or turns of expression known among the Greeks by the names of the paragramma (apάypaμμa), and the paronomasia. (aporo paria), the antanaclasis (avravákλaorç), and the plóke (ok), were often merely what we should now call puns. Addison observes that Aristotle, in the eleventh chapter of his Rhetoric,' describes different kinds of puns or paragrams, among the beauties of good writing, and produces instances of them out of some of the greatest authors in the Greek tongue. Cicero,' he adds, has sprinkled several of his works with puns, and in his book, where he lays down the rules of oratory, quotes abundance of sayings as pieces of wit, which also upon examination prove arrant puns.' I do not find,' he afterwards says, that there was a proper separation made between puns and true wit by any of the antient authors except Quintilian and Longinus.' We may also refer to another very clever paper in the Guardian' (No. 36), attributed to a writer of the name of Birch, which contains what is called A Modest Apology for Punning.' In the introduction to this paper the distinction is happily enough drawn between the extemporaneous puns of conversation and the punning in deliberate and grave compositions, which in this country, in the early part of the seventeenth century, used to be reckoned eloquence and fine writing, 'I look,' says the author, upon premeditated quibbles and puns committed to the press, as unpardonable crimes. There is as much difference betwixt these and the starts in common discourse, as betwixt casual rencontres and murder with malice prepense.' The philosophy of the pun, and its relation to alliteration, rhyme, and other forms of speech, the effect of which is derived partly from the sound, might afford matter for some speculation. PUNCH, the name of the principal character in a well known puppet-show which is exhibited about the streets, and which appears to have originated in Italy; the name is a corruption of Policinella, the Neapolitan clown, who is generally the leading character in puppet-show performances. But the show itself, or rather the puppets, are styled by the Italians fantoccini.' Galiani, in his Vocabolario del Dialetto Napoletano,' gives the following account of the origin of Policinella, or rather Polecenella, as it is pronounced by the Neapolitans. A company of strolling comedians once arrived at the town of Acerra near Naples, in the season of the vintage. The vintagers are, by traditional custom, licensed jesters. The comedians fell in with a band of vintagers, who assailed them with jokes and vociferations, which the comedians retorted. One of the vintagers, called Puccio d'Aniello, or Puccio the son of Aniello, remarkable, for a very large nose and grotesque appearance, was the most forward and witty of all his band, and at last the comedians were fairly beaten out of the field. Reflecting on this occurrence, the comedians thought that a character like that of their antagonist Puccio d'Aniello might prove very attractive on the stage, and they proposed an engagement to him, which he accepted. The engagement proved profit |