PIXELLI, BARTOLOMEO. 



1'INKBBTOK, JOHN. 







thoee works which might be obnoxious to tha Roman 

 Catholic religion. The molt of his inquiry was an 'Index norus 

 Librorum Prohibitorum,' Seville, 1631. published by order of Cardinal 

 Zapata, grand-inquisitor of Spain. Pineda published a version of 

 Theodore I'eltar's ' Catena Uneoorum Patrum in Proverbia Salouionia.' 

 Be also published 1, ' Commentarius in Job,' 2 vols. fol., Madrid, 

 1597 ; 2, ' Salomo Provius, sire de Rebus Salomon!* Kegis,' libri octo, 

 Lyon. 1609; S, ' Commentarius in Eoclwiuten,' Antwerp, 1620; 4, 

 ' llonarchia Eocleaiaatica, o Bistoria Universal del Hundo deade su 

 Crcaoioo hasta estos Tiempos,' 5 vols, fol., Barcelona, 1620. This 

 work is a universal history of the world in 30 books, and is written 

 with some display of erudition but no discrimination, and with all 

 the intolerant spirit of an inquisitor. 



PINELLI, BARTOLOMEO, an eminent modern artist at Rome, 

 known as p*!"*" 1 * and etcher, lie painted in oil and water-colour?, 

 but is chiefly known for hia etchings from Roman history and Roman 

 costume. lie etched about two hundred plates illustrating the most 

 remarkable events in the history of ancient Rome, and the habits and 

 customs of the modern Italians, besides groups of banditti, and a few 

 prints from the works of some of the earlier Italian painters. Pinelli's 

 drawings in chalk and water-colours were very popular. His etchings 

 are very bold, and evidently executed with perfect case, but all, 

 ancient and modern, are mere costume pieces, and his figures are 

 heavy, uniform in character, and without expression beyond that of 

 the attitude and costume : in design they resemble the ancient bassi- 

 rilievi. The works by which he is chiefly known out of liome are 

 published under the following titles : ' Istoria degli Imperitori inventata 

 ed incita in cento Rami da B. Pinelli,' 1829 ; ' Raccolta di Costumi 

 pittoreschi incisi all' acqua forte da B. Pinelli Romano,' Roma, 1809 ; 

 'Nuova Raooolta di cinquanta costumi pittoretchi,' &c., 1816. Pinelli 

 died at Rome, in the vigour of life, in 1836. He was in the habit of 

 going daily to a tavern opposite the Foutana di Trevi, which was 

 known by his name ; he there held a conversazione which was regularly 

 attended by a certain portion of the artists of Rome, among whom he 

 had a species of oracular authority. 



P1NGRE, ALEXANDER WILLIAM, wu born at Paris on the 

 4th of September 1711, and educated in a religious establishment at 

 Senlis. At the age of twenty-four he was appointed professor* of 

 theology, but during the persecution of the Jansenista he waa deprived 

 of hi* situation by the government, for some years after which he 

 gained a livelihood by teaching the elements of grammar in an obscure 

 college. Disgusted with his theologiaal career, at the age of thirty- 

 eight or thereabouts, he began the study of astronomy, and his friend 

 Lecat, a celebrated physician of his day, having shortly afterwards 

 founded an academy at Rouen, the department of astronomy in that 

 establishment was placed under Pingr6"s direction. His observation 

 of the transit of Mercury, on the 6th of May 1753, led to his being 

 nominated a correspondent of the Academy of Sciences, of which, in 

 1756, be was elected a free associate. About this time also he was 

 appointed chancellor of the University of Pari', and librarian of the 

 abbey of Sainte Genevieve, on the summit of which building a small 

 observatory was erected for his use. In connection with Lemonnier 

 he computed a nautical almanac, called the ' fctat du Ciel,' for the 

 yrars 1754-57. In this work his chief object was to render an essential 

 service to the mariner by supplying the means of determining a ship's 

 longitude, which he proposed to deduce from the moon's hour angle 

 by the aid of tables computed by himself with very great labour. The 

 method however inspired little confidence, and was shortly afterwards 

 superseded by the method suggested by Lacaille. 



In 1760 Pingre, by order of the government, sailed for the island of 

 Rodrigo, in the Indian Sea, in order to observe the transit of Venus, 

 which took place on the Gth of June of tha ensuing year. The ulti- 

 mate object was the determination of the sun's parallax, which 1'ingrd, 

 from his own observations, inferred to be about 10", but in later yean 

 his calculation was found erroneous. The same phenomenon was 

 observed by him at the island of St. Domingo in 1769, during one of 

 four voyagea undertaken by him to try the chronometers of Berthaud 

 and Leroy. He died at Paris on the 1ft of May 1796. The memoirs 

 contributed by fcim to the ' Transactions ' of the Academy of Sciences 

 conaut chiefly of account* of his observations, and will be found 

 between the years 1753 and 1770. Of his published works the only 

 one to which the least interest is now attached is his ' Cometographie, 

 or an Historical and Theoretical Tr. atise on Comets,' 2 Tola. 4 to, Paris, 



Besides a very complete account of all that was then known con- 

 cerning the nature and motions of comets, it contains the elements 

 of no leas than eighty orbite computed by himself. The readiness 

 with which he engaged in the most lengthy numerical calculations 

 appears to have been the moat prominent point in his character. 

 Lacaille had computed, for the ' Art d* verifier lea Dates,' a table of 

 the eolipsw visible in Europe during the fint eighteen centuries of the 

 Christian era. 1'ingru, without any obvious motive, repeated the 

 whole of the working, adding however a hat of tho eclipses during the 

 tea centuries preceding. He had also reduced a very Urge number of 

 observations of different astronomers, beginning with tycho Brahe, 

 for a work which he intended to call the ' History of Astronomy 

 during the Seventeenth Century.' Several sheets of the work were 

 printed, when further progress was suspended by the depreciation of 



the aesignate, and the publication has not since been, nor is it likely to 



^. lv-u!;t<- I. 



(DeUmbre, Biog. Unit.; Hfmoirn of tkt Frtnck ItutittiH, 1790; 

 Notice of PinyH, by M. Prony.) 



I'INKKKTON, JOHN, was born at Edinburgh in 1758. After 

 finishing his school education he was articled to a writer to the signet, 

 in whose office he spent five years ; but it does not appear that he ever 

 engaged in the practice of that or any other profession. He commenced 

 author in 1776 by the publication of an elegy entitled ' Craigmillar 

 Castle ;' and on the death of his father in 1780 he came to London, 

 and settling there gave himself up to a literary life. In 17S1 he pub- 

 lished an octavo volume of poetical pieces under the title of ' Rimes,' 

 which reached a second edition ; and this was followed the same year 

 by the fint edition of a less forgotten publication, on octavo volume 

 entitled ' Scottish Tragic Ballads,' a second edition of which appeared 

 in 1783, accompanied with a second part containing 'Ballads of the 

 Comic Kind,' the whole being now included under the general title of 

 ' Select Scottish Ballads.' Of these pretended ancient ballads however 

 a considerable number were fabrications of Pinkerton's own. Mean- 

 while in 1 782 he had published ' Two Dithyrambic Odes on Enthusiasm 

 and Laughter,' in a sixpenny quarto pamphlet ; and soon after another 

 original volume of the same form, entitled ' Tales in Verse.' la 1784 

 he produced his 'Essay on Medals,' in 2 vols. Svo, a work of c<>; 

 able merit for the time, though now of little use, but in which Pinkerton 

 is stated to have been much indebted to the assistance of the late Mr. 

 Douce and another friend. It has been twice reprinted since with 

 improvements. 



In 1785 he gave to the world, under the ' nom de guerre ' of Robert 

 Heron, an octavo volume of ' Letters on Literature,' in which some 

 singular opinions on the value of the Greek and Roman writers were 

 attempted to be made still more startling by a new and very strange 

 system of spelling, in which however the inventor had the good senso 

 not to persevere after it bad answered its temporary purpose. This 

 book procured Pinkerton the acquaintance of Horace Walpole, and 

 through him of Gibbon and other distinguished literary characters. 

 His next publication was one which has retained its interest and value, 

 his 'Ancient Scotish Poems, never before in print, from the MS. 

 Collections of Sir Richard Maitlmid of Lethington, Knight,' 2 vols. 

 Svo, London, 1786. It is a mistake to describe this work as a literary 

 forgery, as has sometimes been done ; the poemx from the Maitlsnd 

 and Banuatyne manuscripts, of which it consists, are all genuine. 

 [MAITI.AND, SIR RICHARD.] It ia here however, in a ' List of all the 

 Scotinh Poets, with Brief Remarks,' that he mokes hia confession of 

 the forgery of several pieces ia the previous collection. 



In 1787, besides a compilation in 2 vola. 12oio entitled 'Tho Treasury 

 of Wit,' which he published under the name of Bennet, ho produced 

 the first edition of his ' Dissertation on the Origin and Pro.ir.-Hg of tho 

 Scythians or Goths,' 8vp, a work which, whatever may be thought of 

 some of the conclusions at which he arrives, exhibits much ingenuity 

 and various learning. Here he first announced that strong ant i 

 feeling which colours all his historical and antiquarian disquisitions, 



and which made him so many enemies. This publication was followed 

 by a collection of ' Lives of Scottish Saints,' Svo, in Latin ; :m 

 edition of Harbour's poem of ' The Bruce,' 8 vols. Svo ; and by one of 



hia most important works, 'An Enquiry into tho History of Scotland, 

 preceding the Reign of Malcolm 1 1 1.,' 2 vols. Svo (with tho ' Dissertation 

 on the Goths' appended). This inquiry (which was reprinted, along 

 with the 'Dissertation,' in 1794, and again in 1814), with all tho 

 perversity or want of judgment on some points by which it is dis- 

 figured, is still a very valuable work for the many curious documents 

 it contains, all rare, and some of them nowhere else to be found in n 

 printed form. It was succeeded by ' The Medallio History of England, 

 to tho Revolution,' 4to, 1790 ; 'Sootish Poems,' reprinted from scarco 

 editions, 3 vols. Svo, 1792; ' Iconographia Sootica, or Portraits of 

 Illustrious Persons of Scotland, with Biographical Notes.' 2 vols. Svo, 

 1705-97; and 'The History of Scotland, from the Accession of the 

 House of Stuart to that of Mary,' 2 vols. 4to, 1797, another work of 

 original research and great importance, although most repnl 

 written, from an unfortunate fancy of imitating Gibbon which had 

 taken possession of tho author. Prefixed to this work is a portrait 

 of the author, with spectacles on, and surrounded by his books, with 

 an inscription which takes care to inform us that he was as yet only in 

 his thirty-eighth year : and he was certainly entitled to take to himself 

 the credit of a large amount of literary performance for that age. 



After tho death of his friend the Earl of Orford in 1797, Piukcrton 

 communicated notes of his conversation in a series of paper* to tho 

 ' Monthly Magazine,' which he afterward* collected and published 

 along with a memoir of Walpole, hi 2 vols. 12mo, under tho title of 

 ' Walpoliana.' His next publication was 'The Scottish Gallery, or 

 Portrait* of Eminent Persons of Scotland, with their Characters,' Svo, 

 1799. In 1802 appeared the first edition of his ' Modern Geography, 

 digested on a new plan,' in 2 vols. 4to, a second edition of which, 

 extending to 3 voK, was brought out in 1807. There is also an 

 abridgment of this work in 1 vol. Svo. 



In 1S02 Pinkerton left Kngland, and for the rest of his life resided 

 chiefly hi Paris, continuing however to give occupation to the press of 

 his native country with his usual industry. Two thick but not very 

 well-filled octavos, entitled ' Recollections of Paris in the Years 1802-3- 



