[Persigny, Fialin, Duc de], a French statesman, a supporter all along of Louis Napoleon, abetting him in all his efforts to attain the throne of France, from the affair of Strasburg in 1836 to the coup d'état of December 1851, and becoming in the end Minister of the Interior under him; had to leave France at his fall (1806-1872).
[Persius], the last king of Macedonia; was conquered by Paulus Æmilius, and died captive at Rome 167 B.C.
[Persius], Roman satirist, born in Etruria, was a pupil and friend of Cornutus the Stoic; a man much esteemed, who died young, only 28; wrote six short satires in the purity of a white-souled manhood, of much native vigour, though not equal to those of Horace and Juvenal, and that have commanded the regard of all scholars down to the present time; they have often been translated (34-62).
[Perth] (30), the county-town of Perthshire, on the Tay, 22 m. W. of Dundee: is a beautifully situated town, with fine buildings, the only old one being the restored St. John's Church. Its industries are dyeing and ink-making. At Scone, 2 m. distant, the kings of Scotland were crowned; and the murder of James I., the Gowrie conspiracy, and the battle of Tippermuir are but a few of its many historical associations. "The Five Articles of Perth," adopted by a General Assembly held there in 1618, did much to precipitate the conflict between the Royal power and the Scottish Church; they enjoined kneeling at the Lord's Supper, observance of Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, and Pentecost, confirmation, and the private administration of the sacraments.
[Perth] (8), the capital of West Australia, on the Swan River.
[Perthshire] (122), the most beautiful and varied county in Scotland, occupies the whole of the Tay Valley and part of the Forth, and is bounded by nine other counties. The N. and W. are mountainous, with many rivers and lakes, and much of the finest scenery in Scotland; the Trossachs and Loch Katrine are world famed. In the E. is extensive woodland and the Carse of Gowrie, one of the most fertile of Scottish plains. Ben Lawers is the highest mountain, Loch Tay the largest lake. Much of the soil is good only for sheep farms, deer forests, and grouse moors; the county is visited annually by thousands of tourists and sportsmen.
[Pertinax, Helvius], Roman emperor in succession to Commodus; rose from the ranks by his military services to the imperial dignity, which he was pressed to accept against his will, and was assassinated by the Prætorian Guards less than three months after, in consequence of the reforms he projected in order to restore the ancient discipline of the army (126-193).
[Perturbations], name given to irregularities or slight deviations in the movement of a heavenly body, due chiefly to the neighbourhood of another point in its orbit.
[Peru] (3,000), a country in the W. of South America, twice the size of Austro-Hungary, lies between Brazil and Bolivia and the Pacific, with Ecuador on the N. and Chile on the S.; it consists of a seaboard plain, hot and rainless, but intersected by rich river courses, in which sugar, cotton, and coffee are grown; the Andes chains, snow-tipped and presenting every kind of climate and variety of vegetation on their slopes and in their valleys, rich in minerals and yielding chiefly great quantities of silver; and the Montana, the eastward slopes of the Andes, clad with valuable forests where the cinchona is cultivated, and the upland basins of the Ucayalé River and the Upper Amazon, very fertile, with great coffee and cacao plantations and abundant rain; the chief articles of export are silver, nitre, guano, sugar, and wool. Lima (200), the capital, is 8 m. inland from its port Callao (35); has an old cathedral, and is the chief centre of commerce; its principal merchants are Germans. The government is republican; the ruling classes are of Spanish descent, but half of the population are Inca Indians and a quarter are half-castes. From the 12th to the 16th centuries the Incas enjoyed a high state of civilisation and an extensive empire administered on socialistic principles; they attained great skill in the industries and arts. The Spanish conqueror Pizarro, landing in 1532, overthrew the empire and established the colony; after three centuries of oppression Peru threw off the Spanish yoke in 1824. The history of the republic has been one of continual restlessness, and a war with Chile 1879-84 ended in complete disaster; recovery is slowly progressing.
[Perugia] (17), Italian walled city on the right bank of the Tiber, 127 m. by rail N. of Rome, with a cathedral of the 15th century, some noteworthy churches, a Gothic municipal palace, picture gallery, university, and library; is rich in art treasures and antiquarian remains; it has silk and woollen industries; it was anciently called Perusia, and one of the cities of ancient Etruria, and in its day has experienced very varied fortunes; it was the centre of the Umbrian school of painting.