POYNTER, EDWARD JOHN, painter, born in Paris; was educated in England, studied in Rome and Paris, and settled in London in 1860; held appointments at University College and at Kensington, but resigned them in 1881 to prosecute his art, which he has since assiduously done, and with distinction; was elected President of the Royal Academy in 1896; is the author of “Lectures on Art”; b. 1836.

POZZO DI BORGO, COUNT, the lifelong enemy of Napoleon, born in Ajaccio, Corsica; was a partisan of Paoli; obliged to flee from Corsica, took refuge in London, in Vienna, and then in Russia, and plotted everywhere to compass the ruin of his arch-enemy; seduced, out of simple hatred of him, Bernadotte from the service of Napoleon, and egged on the allies against France; represented Russia at the Congress of Vienna, and died in Paris (1764-1842).

POZZUOLI (12), an Italian city on the Bay of Naples, is noted for its classical remains; the cathedral was once the temple of Augustus; there are ruins of other temples, a forum, and the ancient harbour of Puteoli, where St. Paul landed; the town has been submerged and partially raised again by volcanic action; Mount Solfatara, behind, supplies medicinal gases and springs; near it are the Italian works of Armstrong of Elswick.

P. P., CLERK OF THIS PARISH, the feigned author of a volume of memoirs written by Arbuthnot in ridicule of Burnet’s “History of My Own Times.”

PRAED, WINTHROP MACKWORTH, witty facile versifier and politician, born in London; practised in verse-making from a boy, notably at Eton; bred for the bar, entered Parliament as a Tory in 1830, and rose into office; wrote several verse-tales, some pieces of promise, such as “Arminius” and “My Pretty Josephine,” a grotesque production called “The Red Fisherman,” and exquisite vers de societe (1802-1839).

PRAETOR, a Roman magistrate at first, virtually a third consul, with administrative functions, chiefly judiciary, originally in the city, and ultimately in the provinces as well, so that the number of them increased at one time to as many as 16.

PRAETORIAN GUARD, a select body of soldiers distributed in cohorts, as many as ten of a thousand each, to guard the person and maintain the power of the emperors, and who at length acquired such influence in the State as to elect and depose at will the emperors themselves, disposing at times of the imperial purple to the highest bidder, till they were in the end outnumbered and dispersed by Constantine in 312.

PRAGMATIC SANCTION, a term applied to “an ordinance of a very irrevocable nature which a sovereign makes in affairs belonging wholly to himself, or what he reckons within his own right,” but applied more particularly to the decree promulgated by Charles VI., emperor of Germany, whereby he vested the right of succession to the throne of Austria in his daughter, Maria Theresa, wife of Francis of Lorraine, a succession which was guaranteed by France, the States-General, and the most of the European Powers.