PONT), JOHN. 



PONTIUS, PAUL. 



August 1492, from the effect* of a disorder brought on by the fatigue* 

 of hi* military life. At hi* death, Ferdinand and Isabella, with all 

 their court, went for several days into deep mourning. 



(Bernaldw, Cnmica dt lot Ktytt Cattlicot, Genealoyia de lot Ponea 

 dt Ltm ; Prescott, Ferdinand and Itabdla.) 



POND, JOHN, was born about 1767, and wai successively at Maid- 

 atone grammar school, under the tuition of Wales, known as astronomer 

 to Captain Cook's expedition, and at Trinity College, Cambridge. 

 Ba?ing been obliged, from the ill-health which attended him almost 

 through life, to ipend several yean abroad, he established himself, on 

 his return, at Weatbury near Bristol, where he resided till bis marriage 

 in 1807. He then settled in London; and in 1811 was appoints! to 

 succeed Dr. Maskelyne as astronomer royal He retired from this 

 office upon a pension in 1835. and died September 7, 1836, at Black- 

 heath. He was buried at Lee near Blackheath, in the same tomb 

 with his predecessor H alley. 



Mr. Pond's attention was directed to astronomy by Wales, to whom 

 it is stated that, when a boy, he pointed out some apparent imperfec- 

 tion of the Greenwich instruments, as shown in their published results. 

 He did not continue this study at Cambridge, and missed the oppor- 

 tunity of acquiring that depth of mathematical knowledge which is 

 necessary for the comprehension of the highest branches of the theory 

 of gravitation. The branch of astronomy to which he devoted his sub- 

 sequent life was the determination of the places of the fixed stars ; 

 and in knowledge of the instruments and methods necessary to be 

 used, and sagacity in detecting and avoiding error, the opinion of 

 those who are best able to judge places him second to none of this 

 day. As a mere handler of instrument.?, his friend Troughton, one of 

 the best of critics in such a matter, used to say that " Mr. Pond had, 

 within his knowledge, no equal or rival except Captain Kater." 



The circumstance which brought Mr. Pond into notice as an 

 astronomer was the following : when at Westbury, he became 

 possewed of an altitude and azimuth circle by Troughton, and under- 

 took a series of observations, from which he deduced (' Phil. Trans.,' 

 1806) that the quadrant then still in use at Greenwich for the determi- 

 nation of declinations had clmnvst iU form since the time of Bradley : 

 a result which Troughton verified by actual measurement of the 

 instrument. A mural circle (called TrouRhtou's, from its maker) was 

 accordingly ordered, in place of the quadrant ; but it was not erected 

 till 1812, when Mr. Pond, who had pointed out (or at least bad proved, 

 for it had been suspected before) the error of the old instrument, was 

 settled in his place at Greenwich. The memoir above cited says, " Mr. 

 Pond saw, almost intuitively, the vast superiority of this over every 

 other form of the declination instrument, ami for gome years he and 

 the artist who constructed it were perhaps the only persons who did 

 clearly see and broadly assert that the operation of a circle did not 

 depend upon having a bearing on each side, or a complete axis." In 

 1825 the mural circle made by Mr. Jones, and intended for the Cape 

 of Good Hope, was sent to Greenwich for examination. During this 

 procesa Mr. Pond first used the two instruments for direct and reflected 

 observations of the same star, a method which is thought to ba,vo been 

 suggested by Troughton ; and, at bis request, the circle intended for 

 the Cape was retained at Greenwich. Mr. Pond is also the inventor of 

 the method of observing in groups ; and it is also to be noted that he 

 was the first astronomer who advocated what is now the universal 

 practice, of depending upon masses of observations for all fundamental 

 data. 



In 1833 Mr. Pond had finished his standard catalogue of 1113 stars, 

 which was then the largest of those which had any pretension to the 

 tame degree of accuracy. The controversy between Pond and Brinkley 

 on the parallax of the fixed stars is a matter of history, on which it 

 only concerns us here to say that the general opinion now is, that the 

 former was right in his assertion that the latter did not prove the 

 existence of a sensible amount of parallax. 



The works of Mr. 1'ond are : 1, the volumes of Greenwich Observa- 

 tions, published during his astronouiership ; 2, various Papers in the 

 Transactions of the Royal and Royal Astronomical Societies; 3, a 

 Translation of the ' Systeuie du Monde ' of Laplace, His astronomical 

 writings are condensed, and not addressed to any but those who have 

 a thorough acquaintance with the subject. There in nothing of a 

 popular nature in the usual work of an observatory ; to that while 

 few except astronomers know more of the subject of this article than 

 that one John Pond, Esquire, was noted in the almanacs and directories 

 as astronomer royal, the following is the testimony of the Astronomical 

 Society : " It is not too much to say that meridian sidereal observa- 

 tion (which excludes the llerscbclian branch of astronomy) owes more 

 to him than to all his countrymen put together since the time of 

 Brad lev." 



PONIATOWSKI, JOSEPH, PItlNCK, born at Warsaw, in 1763, 

 was the son of Andrea* Poniatowski, lieutenant-general of artillery in 

 the Austrian service, and nephew to Ktauirlaus Augustan, the last 

 king of Poland. He entered the Austrian service, and became colonel 

 of dragoons and aide de-camp of the limperor Joseph II., with whom 

 he mule a campaign against the Turks in 1787. In 1789 he returned 

 to Poland, when he showed himself a warm supporter of the inile- 

 Jenc- of his country. He fought agaiust the Ruotians in 1792, but 

 obliged to resign his command in consequence of the king's 

 i and partiality for Russia. In 1794, when the Pole* again 



rose against the Russians, Joseph Poniatowski served under Koscimko, 

 but Kosciuxko being defeated, he was obliged to emigrate, and he 

 retired to Vienna. 



In 1798 he returned to Warsaw, which was then under the dominion 

 of Prussia, and the Prussian government restored to him part of his 

 states, where he speut several years. After the battle of Jena, in 

 1806, and the invasion of Prussia by Napoleon, the French armies 

 advanced towards the Vistula. In this crisis he was appointed by the 

 king of Prussia military commander of Warsaw, where ho formed a 

 national guard for the security of the city. In this capacity he 

 received the French general Murat, who took possession of Warsaw, 

 in November 1806. At first he would not accept any service under 

 the French, until Napoleon, having arrived at Warsaw, cajoled the 

 Poles witli fine though vauue promises, talking, in his oracular style 

 of " the destinies of Poland being on the eve of being fulfilled," &c. 

 Tbo Poles trusted to him, and a national army was formed, of which 

 Poniatowski took the command, and which rendered great services to 

 the French during the campaign of 1807 against the Kussians. By the 

 peace of Tilsit, Russia and Austria retained the greater part of Poland, 

 and the duchy of Warsaw was given to the king of Saxony. 1'onia- 

 towski remained minister at war for the duchy, but the Polish army 

 was scattered among the French garrisons in Germany, and some 

 regiments were drafted for service in Spain. When a new war broke 

 out between Austria and Napoleon in 1809, Poniatowski, who had 

 only a small force left with him, after fighting against the Auetrians, 

 was obliged to evacuate Warsaw, but he soon after invaded Galicia, 

 and called the inhabitants to arms. 



By the peace of Vienna (October 1809), Galicia was taken away 

 from Austria and united to the grand-duchy of Warsaw. When the 

 war broke out between France and Russia in 1812, Poniatowski, who 

 had in the meantime increased and disciplined the l'oli-h army, 

 obtained the command of the fifth corps of the ' grand army,' which 

 was composed entirely of Poles. He fought bravely in several battles 

 against the Russians, and entered Moscow with Napoleon. At the 

 same time he maintained the strictest discipline in his corps, which 

 did not shore in the excesses committed by other portions of the 

 invading army. In the disastrous retreat from Moscow the same 

 corps distinguished itself by its orderly behaviour. Being obliged to 

 evacuate Warsaw, Poniatowski withdrew into Saxony, and in the 

 following campaign of 1813 Napoleon gave him the command of a 

 mixed corps of French and Poles. He fought with his usual bravery 

 in various battles, and was made a marshal of France by Napoleon 

 just before the battle of Leipzig. A few days after, on the 1Mb, of 

 October, while protecting with a handful of men the retreat of the 

 French, he was twice wounded, and being pressed by the enemy upon 

 the banks of the river Elster, which was swelled by the rains, ho 

 spurred his horse into the river and disappeared in the water. 



PONIATOWSKI, STANISLAUS, COUNT, a Polish nobleman, 

 was born in 1678. He took the part of Stanislaus Leckziuski and of 

 his protector Charles XII. of Sweden against King Augustus and the 

 Russian party, as it was called, in Poland. [AUGUSTUS II. of Poland ; 

 CHARLES XII. of Sweden.] He followed Charles iu his adventurous 

 expedition into Russia, with the rank of major-general in the Swedish 

 army, and after the defeat of Pultawa materially helped the king to 

 effect his escape with a handful of men into the Turkish territory. 

 Having seen his master safely lodged at Bender, Poniatowski repaired 

 to Constantinople as his agent, to forward his interests with the 

 Sultan. He displayed iu that difficult and dangerous mission all the 

 resources of a most experienced diplomatist. Alone, without con- 

 nections, the representative of a fugitive king, who was himself a kind 

 of prisoner in the hands of the Turks, ho contrived to engage the 

 Porto to espouse the cause of Charles and to attack Russia, and he 

 acquired influence enough to obtain the dismissal of several viziers in 

 succession for having thwarted big views. The curious particulars of 

 his uegociatious at the Porto are related iu a lively manner by Vol- 

 taire iu his ' History of Charles XII.' At last, when Charles n 

 to <]uit Bender, Poniatowski followed his master into Germany, where 

 he remained with Stanislaus Leckziuski, the protege' of Charles, who 

 had been driven out of Poland by the Russian party. Poniatowski 

 remained with Stanislaus till the death of Charles, when all h 

 seeing him restored to the crown of Poland having vanished, Pouia- 

 towski made hU submission to King Augustus, who not only restored 

 to him his property, but made him treasurer of Lithuania, general of 

 the guards, and lastly, palatine of M MO via. After the death of 

 Augustus he endeavoured to effect the restoration of Stanislaus 

 Lcckziiirki, but did not succeed, and the Elector of Saxony was 

 elected king. Poniatowski made his submission to the new king, who 

 took him into favour, and made him, iu 1752, Castellan of Cracow, 

 which was one of the highest dignities in the kingdom. Some time 

 after be retired to hi* estates, where he died in 1762. Ho married a 

 Princes* Czartoriaka, by whom he had two sons, one of whom became 

 afterwards king of Poland [STANISLAUS AUGUSTUS], and the other 

 entered the Austrian service and became lieutenant general of 

 artillery. 



I'ONTIUS, PAUL, a celebrated engraver, was born at Antwerp in 

 1S90, according to some account*, according to others in 1603. The 

 date of hi* death appear* not to be known : the ' Slaughter of the 

 Innocent*,' after Rubens, one of hi* principal works, i* dated 165;). 



