[Penryn] (3), a Cornish market town at the head of Falmouth harbour; has manufactures of paper, woollen cloth, and gunpowder. It has considerable fishing industry, and ships the Penryn granite quarried near.
[Penseroso, II], a famous Italian poem by Milton, written in 1633.
[Pensionary, the Grand], a State functionary of Holland, whose office, abolished in 1795, it was to superintend State interests, register decrees, negotiate with other countries, and take charge of the revenues, &c.
[Pentacle]. See [Pentagram].
[Pentagram], a symbol presumed to possess a magical influence, particularly to charm away evil spirits, formed by placing the figure of an equilateral triangle athwart another.
[Pentamerone], a collection of tales in the Neapolitan dialect, supposed to be told during five days by ten old women to a pseudo-princess, and published at Naples 1637; is of great value to students of folk-lore.
[Pentateuch], the name given by Origen to the first five books of the Bible, which the Jews call the Law or Five-fifths of the Law, the composition of which has of late years been subjected to keen critical investigation, and the whole ascribed to documents of different dates and diverse authorship, to the rejection of the old traditional hypothesis that it was the work of Moses, first called in question by Spinoza, and shown to be untenable by [Jean Astruc] (q. v.).
[Pentecost] (i. e. fiftieth), a great feast of the Jews, so called as held on the fiftieth day after the second of the Passover. It is called also the Feast of Harvest, or Weeks of First-Fruits, the Passover feast being connected with the commencement and this with the conclusion of harvest. It is regarded by the Jews as commemorative of the giving of the law on Mount Sinai, and will never cease to be associated in the Christian memory with the great awakening from which dates the first birth of the Christian consciousness in the Christian Church, the moment when the disciples of Christ first realised in common that their Master was not dead but alive, and nearer to them than He had been when present in the flesh.
[Pentelicus], a range of mountains in Attica between Athens and Marathon, famous for its quarries of fine white marble.
[Penthesilea], the daughter of Ares and the queen of the Amazons; on the death of Hector she came to the assistance of the Trojans, but was slain by Achilles, who mourned over her when dying on account of her beauty, her youth, and her courage.