PIKE, ALBERT (1809-1891).—­Poet, b. at Boston, Mass., was in his early days a teacher, and afterwards a successful lawyer.  His now little-remembered poems were chiefly written under the inspiration of Coleridge and Keats.  His chief work, Hymns to the Gods, which appeared in Blackwood’s Magazine, closely imitates the latter.  He also wrote prose sketches.

PINDAR, PETER, (see WOLCOT, J.).

PINKERTON, JOHN (1758-1826).—­Historian and Antiquary, b. in Edin., was apprenticed to a lawyer, but took to literature, and produced a number of works distinguished by painstaking research, but disfigured by a controversial and prejudiced spirit.  His first publication was Select Scottish Ballads (1783), some of which, however, were composed by himself.  A valuable Essay on Medals (1784) introduced him to Gibbon and Horace Walpole.  Among his other works are Ancient Scottish Poems (1786), Dissertation on the Goths (1787), Medallic History of England (1790), History of Scotland (1797), and his best work, Treatise on Rocks (1811).  One of his most inveterate prejudices was against Celts of all tribes and times.  He d. in obscurity in Paris.

PINKNEY, EDWARD COATE (1802-1828).—­B. in London, where his f. was U.S. ambassador.  He wrote a number of light, graceful short poems, but fell a victim to ill-health and a morbid melancholy at 25.  His longest poem is Rudolph (1825).

PIOZZI, HESTER LYNCH (SALUSBURY) (1741-1821).—­Miscellaneous writer, m. Henry Thrale, a wealthy brewer, and, after his death, Gabriel Piozzi, an Italian musician.  Her chief distinction is her friendship with Dr. Johnson, who was for a time almost domesticated with the Thrales.  Her second marriage in the year of Johnson’s death, 1784, broke up the friendship.  She wrote Anecdotes of Dr. Johnson, a work which had a favourable reception, and gives a lifelike picture of its subject, and left an Autobiography.  Her poem, The Three Warnings, is supposed to have been touched up by Johnson.  Many details of her friendship with J. are given in the Diary of Madame D’Arblay (q.v.).

PLANCHE, JAMES ROBINSON (1796-1880).—­Dramatist and miscellaneous writer, b. in London of Huguenot descent, was in the Herald Office, and rose to be Somerset Herald, in which capacity he was repeatedly sent on missions to invest foreign princes with the Order of the Garter.  He produced upwards of 90 adaptations, and about 70 original pieces for the stage.  He also wrote a History of British Costumes, The Pursuivant of Arms (1852), and The Conqueror and his Companions (1874), besides autobiographical Recollections (1872).