fifty-five, and was first buried at Auckland; but afterwards. removed and interred in the choir at Durham cathedral, with an inscription, now defaced, but which Willis copied from a MS. in the Bodleian library. Mr. Baker has a different one. His brothers, John and Leonard, were prebendaries of Durham; Leonard was D. D. master of St. John's college, Cambridge, and regius professor there. Our prelate founded a school at Rivington, the seat of his family. He had by his wife Alicia, of the family of the Kingsmills, at Sigmanton, in Hampshire, two sons and two daughters.-He had a brother, Leonard, who was a prebendary of Durham, rector of Middleton, regius professor of divinity, Cambridge, in 1561, and master of St. John's college. He died probably about 1600.'

PILKINGTON (LETITIA), an English wit and poetess,. of no very eminent rank, was the daughter of Dr. Van Lewen, a gentleman of Dutch extraction, who settled in Dublin, by a lady of good family; and born there in 1712. She had early a strong inclination and taste for letters, especially for poetry; and her performances were considered as extraordinary for her years. This, with a lively manner, drew many admirers; and at length she became the wife of the rev. Matthew Pilkington, a gentleman once known in the poetical world by his volume of Miscellanies, revised by dean Swift, who had reason afterwards to be ashamed of the connection. In a short time Mr. Pilkington grew jealous, as she relates, not of her person, but of her understanding; and her poetry, which when a lover he admired with raptures, was changed now he was become her husband, into an object of envy. During these jealousies, Mr. Pilkington, in 1732, went into England, in order to serve as chaplain to Mr. Barber, lord mayor of London; and absence having brought him into better humour with his wife, he wrote her a very kind letter, in which he informed her that her verses were full of elegance and beauty; that Pope, to whom he had shewn them, longed to see the writer; and that he himself wished her heartily in London. She accepted the invitation, went, and returned with her husband to Ireland, where they were soon after separated, in consequence of a gentleman being

1 Strype's Cranmer, p. 203, 246, 261, 275.-Strype's Parker, p. 43, 67, 85, 93, 155, 181, 275.-Strype's Grindal, p. 54.-Hutchinson's Hist, of Durham. -Baker's MS Hist. of St. John's College.-Cole's Ms Athenæ in Brit. Mus Gough's Topography.

found in her bed-chamber at two o'clock in the morning. Her apology is rather curious: "Lovers of learning, I am sure, will pardon me, as I solemnly declare it was the attractive charms of a new book, which the gentleman would not lend me, but consented to stay till I read it through, that was the sole motive of my detaining him." Of her guilt, however, no doubts were entertained. "Dr. DeJany," says dean Swift, in a letter to alderman Barber, "is a very unlucky recommender, for he forced me to countenance Pilkington; introduced him to me, and praised the wit, virtue, and humour of him and his wife; whereas he proved the falsest rogue, and she the most profligate w-e in either kingdom. She was taken in the fact by her own husband; he is now suing for a divorce, and will not compass it; she is suing for a maintenance, and he has none to give her."

She came afterwards to England, and settled in London; where, Colley Cibber making interest for her, she lived some time upon contributions from the great; but at length these succours failed, and we find her in the prison of the Marshalsea. After lying nine weeks here, she was released by another effort of her friend Cibber, and then, weary of attending upon the great, she resolved to employ five guineas she had left, in trade; and accordingly, taking a little shop in St. James's-street, she furnished it with pam-› phlets and prints. She did not probably succeed in this. scheme, for on Aug. 29, 1750, she died at Dublin, in her thirty-ninth year.

Considered as a writer, she holds some rank in dramatic history, as the author of "The Turkish Court, or London Apprentice," a comedy acted at Dublin in 1748, but never printed. The first act of her tragedy, "The Roman Father," was no bad specimen of her talents in that way. Her "Memoirs" are written with great sprightliness and wit, and describe the different humours of mankind very naturally, but they must, as to facts, be read with the caution necessary in the Apologies of the Bellamys and Baddelys of our own days. She had a son, JOHN CARTERET Pilkington, who also became an adventurer, and somewhat of a poet. He published a volume of his "Memoirs,” 1760, 4to, and died in 1763.1

! Memoirs, 1749, 2 vols. 12mo.-Swift's Works. See Index.-Cibber's Lives.-Biog. Dram.

PILPAY is the name of an ancient fabulist, a Bramin; he was, as is supposed, governor of part of Indostan, and counsellor to a powerful Indian king, named Dabschelin, whose preceptor he had been. His work is said to have been written 2000 years B. C. but all internal evidence is against this. It is called in the Indian language, Kelile Wadimne, a name the Orientals give to an animal very much resembling a fox, and which is made to speak throughout the work. All the modern translations of this Orientalist, are made either from the Greek or the Persian, and are said to differ much from the original. His fables were translated into French, by Aut. Galland, 1714, 12mo. Another work is also attributed to him, entitled, in the translation, "Le Naufrage des isles flotantes," or, "The Basiliade,"

1755.

PIN. See DUPIN.

PINDAR, usually styled the prince of Lyric poets, was a contemporary of Eschylus, and born somewhat above forty years before the expedition of Xerxes against the Greeks, and more than 500 B. C. His birth-place was Thebes, the capital of Bœotia; a country, the air of which was esteemed gross, and the stupidity of its inhabitants proverbial. We find the poet, in his sixth Olympic, confessing the disadvantage of his climate, yet resolving to exempt himself from the general censure. His parents are supposed to have been of low condition, so that he was more indebted for his attainments to his genius than to any advantages of education. We have, however, few particulars of his life, amidst the numerous panegyrics to be found in ancient writers. He was highly courted and respected by most of the princes and states of Greece, and even allowed a share with the gods in their gifts and offerings, by the command of the oracle itself. For the priestess at Delphi ordered the people to give a part of their firstfruits, which they brought thither, as a present to Pindar: and he had an iron stool set on purpose for him in that temple, on which he used to sit and sing verses in honour of Apollo.

* His countrymen, the Thebans, were irritated at his com mending their enemies, the men of Athens; and fined him, for this affront to the state. Out of spleen too, they determined a poetical prize against him, in favour of a

1 D'Herbelot.-Hyde de Ludis Orient.

woman, the ingenious and beautiful Corinna. In the mean time, the Athenians made him a present of double the value of his fine; and erected a noble statue in honour of him. His greatest patron was Hiero king of Syracuse, whom he has celebrated in his poems, and it is supposed he left Thebes to attend the court of that prince. He is thought to have passed his whole time in the ease and tranquillity commonly allowed to men of his profession, without intermeddling in affairs of state: for we find him, in his "Isthmics," defending this way of life. His death is said to have been an answer to his wishes: for, having prayed the gods to send him the greatest happiness of which a mortal is capable, he expired immediately after in the public theatre, in his fifty-fifth year. His relations were highly respected after his decease, and such was the veneration for his memory, that the Lacedemonians, at the taking of Thebes, saved his house; a mark of respect which was afterwards repeated by Alexander the Great. The ruins of this house were to be seen in the time of Pausanias, who lived under the reign of Antoninus the philosopher.

Of all the works, which he is said to have composed, we have only his four books of hymns of triumph, on the conquerors in the four renowned games of Greece: the Olympian, the Pythian, the Nemæan, and the Isthmian; and such was his reputation for compositions of this kind, that no victory was thought complete, till it had the approbation of his muse. The spirit of Pindar's poetry is so sublime, and the beauty so peculiar, that it is hardly possible to examine it by parts: and therefore the best judges have usually contented themselves with confirming his general title of "prince and father of lyric poetry," without analyzing his particular excellences. "His Pegasus," as Cowley says, "flings writer and reader too, that sits not Horace called him inimitable, and, Quintilian says, deservedly. "Pindar and Sophocles," says Longinus, "like a rapid fire, carry every thing before them, though sometimes that fire is unexpectedly and unaccountably quenched." The grandeur of his poetry, and his deep erudition, made the ancients give him the title of the Wisest, the Divine, the Great, and the most Sublime: Plato calls him the Wisest and the Divine; Eschy lus the Great; and Athenæus, the most Sublime. Lord Bacon says, that “it is peculiar to Pindar, to strike the minds of men suddenly

sure."

with some wonderful turn of thought, as it were, with a divine scepter."

It is not improper to observe, that some prejudices have arisen among the moderns against Pindar, from certain writings known by the name of Pindaric odes: but very few under that title, not excepting even those written by the admired Cowley, whose wit and fire first brought them into reputation, have the least resemblance to the manner of the author whom they pretend to imitate, and from whom they derive their name; or, if any, it is such a resemblance only as is expressed by the Italian word caricatura, a monstrous and distorted likeness. This observation has been already made by Congreve, in his preface to two admirable odes, written professedly in imitation of Pindar: "The character of these late Pindarics," says he, "is a bundle of rambling incoherent thoughts, expressed in a like parcel of irregular stanzas, which also consist of such another complication of disproportioned, uncertain, and perplexed verses and rhimes. On the contrary," adds he, "there is nothing more regular than the Odes of Pindar, both as to the exact observation of the measures and numbers of his stanzas and verses, and the perpetual coherence of his thoughts. For though his digressions are frequent, and his transitions sudden, yet is there ever some secret connexion, which, though not always appearing to the eye, never fails to communicate itself to the understanding of the reader." Upon the whole, a poetical imagination, a warm and enthusiastic genius, a bold and figurative expression, and a concise and sententious style, are the characteristical beauties of Pindar; very different from the far-fatched thoughts, the witty extravagances, and puerile conceits of his imitators.

The best editions of this poet are, that of Henry Stephens, 1560, 2 vols. 8vo; that of Erasmus Schmidts, in 1616, 4to; and that of Oxford, by West and Welsted, in 1697, folio. From which there was a neat and correct edition, with a Latin version, printed at London by Bowyer in 1755, small 8vo. Of late years, the edition of Heyne, 1773, 8vo, but particularly that of 1798, 3 vols. 8vo, have been in high and just estimation. Two volumes of a more complete edition, with notes on the text, and on the Scholia, were published by the celebrated Beck, in 8vo, at Leipsic, in 1792 and 1795. The remainder is much