629 



PAGAN, COMTE DE. 



PAGET, JAMES. 



630 



thesis was maintained in his royal presence, when Paez's pupi 

 answered every argument adduced by their opponents : the mass wa 

 next celebrated, in conformity with the Roman ritual ; after whie 

 Paez preached a sermon in Qheez with so much success, that the kin 

 himself became a convert to the new religion, and wrote to the pope 

 and to Philip III., then on the throne of Spain, praying them to sen 

 him a reinforcement of missionaries. This wish of the monarch 

 having been made public, proved fatal to him ; for the Abyssinia 

 priests, dreading the ascendancy which Paez and his followers ha 

 attained at court, excited a rebellion, and Za-Denghel was killed i 

 battle with his revolted subjects, on the confines of the province o 

 Gojam (Oct., 1604). Socinos, otherwise called ilelek-Seghed, wh 

 succeeded Za-Denghel in the empire, was still more favourable to th 

 views of the Portuguese missionary. Soon after his accession to th 

 throne, he summoned to his presence Paez, who celebrated mass an 



E reached before all his court, assembled for the purpose. He grantee 

 im, besides, a large piece of ground at Gorgora, on a rocky peninsul 

 on the south side of the lake Dembea, to build a monastery for hi 

 order and a palace for himself. On this occasion, without the assist- 

 ance of any European, but with the mere help of the native 

 working under his orders, Paez produced a building which was the 

 astonishment of those who beheld it. A spring-lock, which he fixec 

 upon one of the doors, paved the king's life when an attempt was 

 afterwards made to assassinate him. Paez lived in great intimac; 

 with Socinos, whom he accompanied in all his military expeditions 

 It was on one of these occasions that he visited Nagnina, a town thre 

 days' march from the sources of the Nile, and surveyed the neigh 

 bouiiug country, a fact which Bruce endeavoured to discredit, for th 

 purpose of appropriating to himself the glory of being the first Euro 

 pean who visited the source of the Abawi, then reputed to be the mam 

 branch of the Nile. [BBUCE.] Pedro Paez died in the beginning o: 

 May 1612, at the age of forty-eight, after having the satisfaction o: 

 seeing hU missionary labours crowned with success, and persuading 

 the king to receive the general confession, and repudiate all his wivei 

 but one. The Roman Catholic faith, thus introduced into Abyssinia, 

 did not lon<* remain the religion of the state. After the death ol 

 Socinos (1632), his successor, Facilidas, persecuted the Jesuits and 

 re-established the old creed, which was Christianity, though in a 

 corrupt form. Besides the translation of the Catechism written by 

 Marcos George and other tracts into the native dialect of Abyssinia, 

 Nicolas Antonio ('Bib. Nov.,' vol. ii., p. 225) attributes to Paez 

 treatise ' De Abyssinorum Erroribus,' a general history of Ethiopia 

 which was supposed to exist in manuscript at Rome, and several letters 

 which have been published in the collection entitled ' Litteras Annuic.' 

 (JIUtoria da Ethiopa a alia, by Manoel de Almeida, MS., in the 

 British Museum, No. 9861, fol 195; Ludolf, Historia, Ethiopi 

 Bruce, Travels ; Salt, Abyssinia.) 



PAGAN, BLAISE-FltANCOIS, COMTE DE, distinguished both 

 as a military engineer and a mathematician, was descended from a 

 noble Neapolitan family, and born at Avignon in France, in 1604. 

 Under the auspices of his relative, the constable De Luynes, he entered 

 the French army very young, and, no less by hi* gallantry and.talents 

 than by his family connections, rose rapidly to rank and reputation. 

 At the siege of Montauban he lost his left eye by a musket shot : but 

 tlii-i did not check his zealous career of service ; and he continued to 

 increase his celebrity as an officer throughout the wars of the reign 

 of Louis XIII., until, being sent into Portugal in 1642, with the rank 

 of marechal de camp, he had the misfortune to contract a distemper in 

 that country, which entailed the loss of his other eye, and rendered 

 him totally blind, at the early age of thirty-eight years. Being thus 

 incapacitated from further serving his country in the field, he applied 

 himself, with characteristic energy, to study the theory of a profession 

 which he had already successfully practised ; and, in 1645, he pub 

 li-hcd hU ' Trait^ de Fortifications,' the ablest essay on the science of 

 defence which the world had yet seen. With no less ardour he had 

 engaged in the kindred pursuit of mathematical research ; and the 

 fruits of hia labours were exhibited in the publication, in 1651, of his 

 ' Thdoremes Ge'ome'triques,' followed, in 1657 and 1658, by a treatise 

 on the planetary theory, and some astronomical tables, all of which 

 were highly esteemed by his contemporaries. He was also the trans- 

 lator of a Spanish account of the river Amazon, accompanied by a 

 chart, the draught of which he is said, though blind, to have drawn 

 with his own hand. With all his mental accomplishments however 

 Pagan was not without that common weakness of his age, a belief in 

 judicial astronomy. But this foible was redeemed by many estimable 

 qualities of head and heart, for which he lived highly respected both 

 in the courtly and the learned circles of his country and times. He 

 died in Paris, universally honoured, in 1 665. 



The mathematical workg of Pagan have lost their value : but, as an 

 engineer, he must ever 1 e numbered among the great masters of the 

 art of fortification. His belonged iu fact to that rare order of minds 

 whole creations form an epoch in the history of any science. He 

 corrected the errors and combined the advantages which he found in 

 the systems of the Italian and Flemish engineers; and though he had 

 been preceded in France by Errard and Do Villc, and was followel 

 and excelled by Vaubau, he may justly be considered a? the founder 

 of the French school of fortifying. He signally improved the old 

 defective construction of bastions ; he first gave duo proportions to 



their faces, flanks, and lines of defence ; and he either originated or 



adopted the idea of a perpendicular flanking fire, which, though 



neglected by Vaubau, has become the great principle of all the modern 



systems. 

 PAGA'NI, GREGO'RIO, was born at Florence in 1558 : his father, 



Francesco Pagani, died aged only thirty, when his son was but three 

 years old. Gregorio was an excellent colourist, was first the pupil of 

 Santi Titi, and afterwards of Cigoli, and became one of the first and 

 most able reformers of the Florentine school from the low state to 

 which it had been reduced by the mechanical followers of the anato- 

 mical school of Michel Angelo. Barocci and Santi Titi were the 

 leaders of the new school, but Cigoli was its principal representative, 

 and Pagani adhered so closely to the style of his friend and master 

 Cigoli, that he used to be termed the second Cigoli His masterpiece, 

 the Finding of the Cross by St. Helena, in the Carmine, was burnt iu 

 the fire which destroyed that building in 1771, and Pagaui's reputa- 

 tion has greatly suffered iu consequence, though there is a print of it 

 by G. B. Cecchi and B. Eredi. Few of his works still remain ; one of 

 the principal is a fresco in Santa Maria Novella : his easel-pictures in 

 oil are also rare. He died at Florence in 1605 : Matteo Roselli was 

 his scholar. 



PAGANI'NI, NICOLO, whose European fame as a violinist entitles 

 him to a notice here, was born at Genoa in 1784. His father, a com- 

 mission-broker, played on the mandoline, but fully aware of the infe- 

 riority of an instrument so limited in power, he put a violin into his 

 son's hands, and initiated him in the principles of music. The child 

 succeeded so well under parental tuition, that at eight years of age he 

 played three times a week iu the church, as well as in the public 

 saloons. At the same period he composed a sonata. In his ninth 

 year, he was placed under the instruction of Costa, first violoncellist 

 of Genoa; then had lessons of Holla, a famous performer and com- 

 poser ; and finally studied counterpoint at Parma under Ghiretti, and 

 the celebrated maestro Paer. He now took an engagement at Lucca, 

 where ho chiefly associated with persons who at the gaming-table 

 stripped him of his gains as quickly as he acquired them. He there 

 received the appointment of director of orchestra to the court, at 

 which the Princess Elisa Bacciochi, sister of Napoleou I., presided, and 

 thither invited, to the full extent of her means, superior talent of 

 every kind. In 1813 he performed at Milan; five years after, ab 

 Turin ; and subsequently at Florence and Naples. In 1828 he visited 

 Vienna, where a very popular violinist and composer, Mayseder, asked 

 iim how he produced such new effects. His reply was characteristic 

 of a selfish mind: "Chacun a ses- secrets." In that capital it is 

 affirmed he was accused of having murdered hia wife. He challenged 

 proofs of his ever having been married, which could not be produced. 

 Then he was charged with having poignarded his mistress. This he 

 also publicly refuted. The fact is that he knew better how to make 

 money than friends wherever his thirst of gold led him. Avarice was 

 master-passion, and, second to this, gross sensuality in his inter- 

 course with the female sex. 



The year 1831 found Paganini iu Paris, in which excitable capital ho 

 iroduced a sensation hardly inferior to that created by the visit of Rosiui. 

 Sven this renowned composer was so carried away by the current of 

 wpular opinion, that he is said to have wept on hearing Paganini for the 

 irst time. He arrived in England in 1831, and immediately announced 

 a concert at the Italian Opera-House, at a price which, if acceded to, 

 would have yielded 33'JH. per night ; but the attempt was too audacious, 

 and he was compelled to abate his demands ; though ho succeeded iu 

 drawing audiences fifteen nights in that season at the ordinary high 

 irices of the King's Theatre. Ho also gave concerts iu other parts of 

 Condon, and performed at benefits, always taking at these a large pro- 

 lortion of the proceeds. He visited moat of our great towns, where his 

 ;ood fortune still attended him. He was asked to play at the Comme- 

 noration Festival at Oxford, iu 1834, and demanded 1000 guineas for 

 us assistance at three concerts. His terms were of course rejected. 



Paganini died at Nice in 1840, of a diseased larynx (' phthisie 

 aryngeV). By his will, dated 1837, he gave his two sisters legacies of 

 0,000 and 70,000 francs ; his mother a pension of 1200; the mother 

 if his son Achillino (a Jewess of Milan) a similar pension; and the 

 est of his fortune, amounting to four million francs, devolved on his 

 on. These and other facts before related, we give on the authority of 

 ho ' Biographic Universelle.' 



Paganini certainly was a man of genius and a great performer, but 

 acrificed his art to bU avarice. His mastery over the violin was 

 Imost marvellous, though he made an ignoble use of his power by 

 mploying it to captivate tho mob of pretended amateurs, by feats 

 ittle better than sleight-of-hand. Hia performance on a single string, 

 nd the perfection of his harmonics, were very extraordinary ; but 

 vhy, as was asked at the time, be confined to one string when there 

 re four at command that would answer every musical purpose so 

 uuck better 1 His tone was pure though not strong, his strings having 

 een of smaller diameter than usual, to enable him to strain them at 

 leasure; for he tuned his instrument most capriciously. He could 

 e a very expressive player : we have heard him produce etl'ccts deeply 

 athetic. His arpeggios evinced his knowledge of harmony, and some 

 w of his compositions exhibit many original traits. 



* PAGET, JAMES, a distinguished living physiologist. He waa 

 orn at Great Yarmouth in Norfolk. In his early years he contracted 



