[Patrick, St.], the apostle and patron saint of Ireland; his birthplace uncertain; flourished in the 5th century; his mission, which extended over great part of Ireland, and over thirty or forty years of time, was eminently successful, and at the end of it he was buried in Downpatrick, henceforth a spot regarded as a sacred one. Various miracles are ascribed to him, and among the number the extirpation from the soil of all venomous reptiles.
[Patrick, Simon], English prelate; distinguished himself, when he was rector of St. Paul's, by his self-denying devotion during the Plague of London; became bishop in succession of Chichester and Ely, and was the author of a number of expository works (1652-1707).
[Patristic Literature], the name given to the writings of the early Fathers of the Christian Church.
[Patroclus], a friend of Achilles, who accompanied him to the Trojan War, and whose death by the hand of Hector roused Achilles out of his sullenness, and provoked him to avenge the deed in the death of Hector.
[Patteson, John Coleridge], bishop of Melanesia, grand-nephew of Coleridge; a devoted bishop, in material things no less than spiritual, among the Melanesian islanders; was murdered, presumably through mistake, by the natives of one of the Santa Cruz groups (1827-1871).
[Patti, Adelina], prima donna, born in Madrid, of Italian extraction; made her first appearance at New York in 1859, and in London at Covent Garden, as Amina in "La Somnambula," in 1861, and has since made the round once and again of the Continent and America, North and South; has been married three times, being divorced by her first husband, and lives at Craig-y-nos Castle, near Swansea, Wales; b. 1843.
[Pattison, Mark], a distinguished English scholar, born at Hornby, Yorkshire; studied at Oxford, and was for a time carried away with the Tractarian Movement, but when his interest in it died out he gave himself to literature and philosophy; wrote in the famous "Essays and Reviews" a paper on "The Tendency of Religious Thought in England"; became rector of Lincoln College, Oxford; wrote his chief literary work, a "Life of Isaac Casaubon," a mere fragment of what it lay in him to do, and left an autobiography, which revealed a wounded spirit which no vulnerary known to him provided by the pharmacopoeia of earth or heaven could heal (1813-1889).
[Pattison's Process], the name of a process for desilverising lead, dependent on the fact that lead which has least silver in it solidifies first on liquefaction.
[Pau] (31), chief town of the French province of Basses-Pyrénées, on the Gave de Pau, 60 m. E. of Bayonne; is situated amid magnificent mountain scenery, and is a favourite winter resort for the English; linen and chocolate are manufactured; it was the capital of Navarre, and has a magnificent castle; it stands on the edge of a high plateau, and commands a majestic view of the Pyrenees on the S.