PEACOCK 



PEAR 



825 



tied body to the early Christians ; its feathers have 

 adorned many a throne and shrine, and the per- 

 verted luxury of the later Roman empire made an 

 entree of the tongues or brains. The eggs and the 

 young are edible, but domesticated peacocks are 

 now kept almost solely for their beauty's sake, and 

 that at some cost, for they are apt to do mischief 

 both in garden and poultry-yard. 



Peacock, THOMAS LOVE, satirist, was lx>rn at 

 Weymouth on 18th October 1785, the only child 

 of a London merchant, who died three years after- 

 wards. His boyhood was passed at Chertsey, and 

 for six and a half years he was sent to a private 

 school on Englefield Green, but from thirteen lie was 

 self-educated, growing up an accomplished scholar. 

 Tlie chief events of his uneventful life were the 

 loss of his first love ( 1808) ; his under-secretaryship 

 to Sir Home Popham on a warship at Flushing 

 (1808-9); his close friendship with Shelley, whom 

 he first met in Wales in 1812, "luring one of his 

 many walking tours ; his employment from 1819 to 

 1856 in the office of the East India Company, as 

 clerk, correspondent, and chief examiner ; his mar- 

 riage in 1820 to the ' Beauty of Carnarvonshire,' 

 who bore him one son and three daughters, and 

 died in 1852 after twenty-six years of ill-health; 

 and the important part he bore in the introduction 

 of iron steamships to Eastern waters (1832-40). 

 In 1823 he had taken a cottage at Halliford on the 

 Thames, and here he died, aged eighty, on 23d 

 January 1866. 



Peacock's literary activity extended over 7nore 

 than half a century. Of liis half-dozen booklets 

 of verse, published between 1804 and 1837, the 

 best, Rhoaodaphne, offers nothing so good as some 

 of the gay lyrics scattered throughout his seven 

 ' novels Headlong Hall (1816), Melincourt (1817), 

 Nightmare Abbey (1818; its hero is Shellev), Maid 

 Marian (1822), 'The Misfortunes of Elphin (1829), 

 Crotchet Castle (1831), and Gryll Grange (I860). 

 And these 'novels' are interesting chietly as a 

 study of character the author's own. A Raljelais- 

 ian pagan of the 18th century, egoistic, protean, 

 such was Thomas Love Peacock, and in Thomas 

 Love Peacock we have the Aljpha and Omega of 

 his writings. They mirror his likings (for nature, 

 music, the classics, madeira, and good living gener- 

 ally), and his stronger, if exaggerated, dislikes 

 (for field-oporto, reviewers, political economy, all 

 things Scotch and American, and, above all, Lord 

 Brougham). They leave on one the impression 

 that the little he did not know was to his mind 

 not worth knowing, that because, for example, he 

 had not been at a university and was not religious, 

 therefore Oxbridge and heaven were beyond his 

 microcosm. They may still find admirers in the 

 cultured few, but the steely wit and erudition of 

 their dialogues can never touch the great heart of 

 the people. They are trite though it sound 

 'caviare to the general.' 



Sec Sir Henry Cole's collected edition of Peacock's 

 works, with a preface by Lord Houghton and a memoir 

 by his granddaughter (3 vols. 1875 ) ; Dr Garnett's edition 

 (10 vols. 1891-92); also an article by Spedding in the 

 Edinffurffh Review for July 1875, and one by Mr Gosse in 

 /ol. iv. of Ward's Englith Pods (2d ed. 1883). 



Peacock-Stone, the name under which the 

 dry cartilaginous ligaments of some large lamelli- 

 branchiate molluscs, as the pearl-oyster, have been 

 sold by jewellers. 



Pea-crab (Pinnotheres). See CEAB, COM- 



MKVSAUSM. 



Peak, the hilly district of north-west Derby- 

 shire, having Castleton for its capital, 10 miles NE. 

 of Buxton. Measuring some 30 by 22 miles, it is 

 watered by the Dove, Derwent, and Wye, and 

 culminates in Kinderscout (2082 feet), other emi- 



nences being Axe Edge (1810 feet) and Mam Tor 

 (1710). The Peak Cavern or Devil's Hole near 

 Castleton penetrates 750 yards ; and crowning a 

 rock above the village is Peveril Castle, so named 

 from its first lord, a bastard of William the 

 Conqueror's. The wonders of the Peak were cele- 

 brated early by Thomas Hobbes ( 1666) and Charles 

 Cotton ( 1683 ) ; recent works are by Croston 

 (1862; new ed. 1889), Bradbury (1879), L. J. 

 Jennings (1880), and Leyland (1891), besides others 

 cited at DERBYSHIRE. 



Pea-nut. See GROUND-NUT. 



Pear. The pear ( Pyrus communis), a member of 

 the Pomacea?, a sub-order of Rosacea?, is a tree very 

 largely cultivated for the sake of its fruit, which 

 contests with that of the peach the first place in 

 the list of the British Pomona, and vastly exceeds it 

 in endurance. The pear is a native of Europe and 

 the more temperate parts of Asia, and is still found 

 wild in Britain, but in that state is of lesser girth 

 and stature, with thorny branches and small harsh 

 fruit, and jagged and sometimes pinnate leaves. 

 Under cultivation the tree attains a height of 40 to 

 60 feet, with a trunk of a yard or even more in 

 diameter, while the thorns disappear, though in 

 some kinds they linger for years after grafting; 

 the leaves are simple, ovate, serrate, or crenate, 

 and sometimes almost entire, glabrous on the upper 

 surface, sometimes tomentose on the under side 

 while young ; the flowers are in corymbs of five 

 to eight or nine or even more, each bloom having 

 five petals, generally white, though in some varie- 

 ties touched or striped with pink, differing also in 

 size and curve according to variety. The stamens 

 are numerous, and the styles distinct, generally 

 five in number and enclosed within the calyx-tube. 

 With the growth of the fruit the ovaries become 

 united, and form what is called the core, consisting 

 usually of five cells, and each cell has one or two 

 seeds or pips, which in many of the best kinds are 

 imperfect. The fleshy mass which is formed around 

 these constitutes what we call the fruit, differing 

 greatly in form, size, and substance, according to 

 variety, health, climate, and other influences. But 

 the normal form of the pear, when we use the word 

 as one of description, is cylindrical, long, and 

 tapering from the stalk to the part just above the 

 eye, where the diameter is greatest. 



The pear-tree is grown upon divers stocks, as 

 well as in many shapes and manners, by English 

 gardeners. ( 1 ) As to stock which partly governs 

 other treatment gardeners use either pear or 

 quince, (a) the pear (which is called tne free 

 stock ) being raised for that purpose from seed or 

 otherwise, and grafted when strong enough, or 

 budded, with the sort required. This is the way 

 to obtain large trees, lusty and enduring, but loth 

 to give fruit until they have found long experience. 

 Injaecunda quidem, sed Iceta et fortia surgunt. 

 Whence the old distich 'The man who plants 

 pears is a-planting for his heirs.' This has told 

 much against the liberal stock, but in common 

 with the race of proverbs is exaggerative, (b) The 

 quince-stock, shallow-rooted, less vigorous in habit, 

 and of briefer date. Upon this stock the pear, 

 when congenial to it, begins to fruit even in the 

 second year from working, gives larger, more 

 beautiful, and sometimes better produce than it 

 could afl'ord upon its closer kindred, but does not 

 grow to the bulk or stature which nature intended 

 for it. It is a mistake, however, to suppose that 

 the tree so wrought is cut short of life, unless of a 

 nature that spurns the union, as some of the finest 

 pears have always done. Other pears, indeed the 

 great majority, thrive upon the quince for from ten 

 to twenty years ; and some kinds there are which 

 show every sign as yet of a life as long and almost 



