FITRE 



PITT 



203 



Monumenta (1864), Triodton Katanactiton (1879), 

 and Hymnographie de V&glise Grecque ( 1867). 



Pitrfc, GIUSEPPE, the greatest of Italian folk- 

 lorists, was born at Palermo, 23d December 1841. 

 His father dying during his childhood, he was 

 brought np by the self-sacrificing care of a devoted 

 mother, and on the outbreak of the revolution in 

 1860 volunteered into the army of Garibaldi. At 

 the close of the war he studied medicine at Pal- 

 ermo, graduating in 1866. While yet a student he 

 had begun his literary careerwith Sui Proverbi Sicili- 

 <(' e Toscani ( 18U2), Profili biografici di contem- 

 voranei Italiani (1864), &c. ; but about 1868 he 

 began the great work of his life when he left the 

 study of literature proper for that of popular litera- 

 ture and folklore generally. With incessant and 

 enthusiastic labour he has since devoted himself to 

 his chosen study, and enriched science and honoured 

 his native land with a long series of luniks and 

 papers of the highest value. His 'Biblioteca 

 delle Tradizioni popolari Siciliane' alone includes 

 19 volumes ( 1870-91 ), the most important of 

 which are the Canti popolari Sicilians (2 vols. 

 1870-71 ; 2d ed. 1891 ) ; Fiabe, Novelle e Roc- 

 conti popolari Sii-iliniii (4 vols. 1875); Proverbi 

 Sicilian (4 vols. 1880); and Usi e Costinni, 

 Credenze e Pregiudizi del popolo Siciliano ( 4 vols. 

 1887-89). Still another series, the 'Curiosita 

 popolari Tradizionali,' includes ten volumes ( 1885- 

 fll ). Much of Dr Pitre's l8t work has been con- 

 tributed to the pages of the well-known folklore 

 quarterly, the ArcKivio per lo Studio delle Tradi- 

 zioni popolari, edited from its foundation in 1882 

 by himself and S. Salomone-Marino. Besides the 

 foregoing Dr Pitre has published an exhaustive 

 BMioyrafia delle Tradizioni popolari d'ltalia 

 (1891); many monographs and papers on Sicilian 

 folk-songs; proverbs; riddles; historical traditions; 

 customs connected with birth, marriage, death, and 

 burial ; as well as special popular lieliefs and 

 superstitions, as those connected with particular 

 festivals, Friday, the Evil Eye, and the like. 

 Good collections are his Novelline popolari To.wa>ie 

 (1878), and Novelle popolari Toscane illustrate 

 (1884); 



Pitri (Sansk., 'father;' plur. Pitaras), the 

 deceased ancestors of a man, but in the special 

 sense in which the word occurs in Hindu mytho- 

 logy, an order of divine lieings inhabiting celestial 

 regions of their own, and receiving into their society 

 the spirits of those mortals for whom the funeral 

 rites have been duly performed. They include there- 

 fore collectively the manes of deceased ancestors 

 (see LARES); but the principal members of this 

 order are lieings of a superior nature. 



Pitncottie, ROBERT LINDSAY OF, the author 

 of The Chronicles of Scotland, extending from the 

 reign of James II. to the year 1565. There is 

 nothing to learn of Lindsay personally, except 

 that he was liom about the beginning of the 

 16th century, and was proprietor of tne lands 

 of Pitscottie in Fifeshire. He is best known 

 by his territorial appellation. His Chronicle 

 was Sir Walter Scott's favourite Scottish history ; 

 and though Pitscottie was not contemporary with 

 the whole of the events he describes, he must, for 

 the latter portion of his history, have derived much 

 of his information from eye-witnesses. His style 

 is quaint and graphic, and his facts in general 

 trustworthy, except where he deals in marvels, to 

 which he is a little prone. It is he, for instance, 

 who tells, on the authority of Sir David Lyndsay, 

 Lynn King-of-anns, that striking story of the 

 intrusion of the apparition to the presence of 

 Januw IV. in Linhthgow, of which Scott gives a 

 viviil picture in Marmion. The best edition of 

 PiUcoU'e's history is Dalyell's (2 vols. 1814). 



Copyright 1891. 1897, >nd 

 1900 in the U.S. by J. B. 

 Lipptocott Company. 



Pitt, WILLIAM, ' the younger,' son of the great 

 Earl of Chatham and of Lady Hester Grenville, was 

 born at Hayes, near Bromley, 

 in Kent, on 28th May 1759. At 

 the time of his birth his father 

 was still in the House of Commons and in the very 

 zenith of his fame, and the future statesman grew 

 up amid associations and surroundings that were 

 well fitted to foster that political ambition Which 

 was to be the guiding and almost the sole impulse of 

 his life. His constitution in boyhood seemed very 

 weak ; he was never sent to school, but his education 

 advanced so rapidly under a private tutor, that he 

 was able to enter Cambridge when only fourteen. 

 He was then a shy, reserved boy of exceedingly 

 precocious talents, of irreproachable morals, ana of 

 regular and studious habits, little drawn to college 

 society and amusements, and already distinguished 

 by a rare self-control and concentration of purpose. 

 From his earliest youth political life was placed 

 before him as his ideal, and all his studies con- 

 verged to that end. He became an excellent 

 classical scholar, but he valued the classical writers 

 mainly as a school of language and of taste ; and it 

 was observed how carefully he analysed their 

 styles, noted down every just or forcible expres- 

 sion, and compared the opposite speeches on the 

 same subject, observing how each speaker met or 

 evaded the arguments of his opponent. Like many 

 others he found in Locke a great master of clear and 

 accurate thinking. His father superintended his 

 studies with much care, and it was remembered 

 that he specially recommended to him the sermons 

 of Barrow as models of style and reasoning, and 

 the histories of Polybius and Thucydides as foun- 

 tains of political wisdom ; that he taught him 

 elocution by making him declaim the grandest 

 poetry in Shakespeare and the speeches of the 

 fallen angels in tne Paradise Lost ; and that he 

 exercised him in fluency by accustoming him to 

 translate into flowing English long passages from 

 the classical writers. To this last practice Pitt 

 largely ascribed that amazing command of choice 

 and accurate English in which he surpassed all his 

 contemporaries. When little more than a boy he 

 was an attentive and discriminating listener to the 

 debates in parliament. He became thoroughly 

 familiar with the matchless eloquence of his father, 

 and together with his brother-in-law, Lord Mahon, 

 he supported his father into the House of Lords on 

 the 7tn April 1778 on that memorable occasion 

 when Chatham delivered his last speech against the 

 surrender of America, and fell down, stricken by 

 mortal illness, on the floor of the House. 



Pitt was left with a patrimony of less than 300 

 a year. He was called to the bar in the June of 

 1780, and went on the Western Circuit, but in 

 September parliament was dissolved, and he at once 

 threw himself into politics. He stood for Cam- 

 bridge University, but found himself at the bottom 

 of the poll ; but Sir James Lowther gave him ;i seat 

 for his pocket-borough of Appleby, and Pitt, in 

 opposition to the ministry, entered the House of 

 Commons on 23d January 1781. 



He came into the House tearing a name which 

 was beyond all others revered by Englishmen, with 

 the advantage of being in no way mixed up with 

 the calamitous American war, and with talents 

 that hail already acquired an extraordinary matu- 

 rity. The Tory ministry of Lord North was then 

 tottering to its fall, crushed by the disasters in 

 America, and confronted by an opposition which 

 consisted of the Old Whigs who followed Rocking- 

 ham, among whom Fox and Burke were conspicu- 

 ous, and of a* smaller body who had been especially 

 attached to the fortunes of Chatham, and who 

 were chiefly represented by Shelburne, Camden, 

 and Barre. Pitt lost no time in throwing himself 



