POLLOCK 



POLL-TAX 



293 



eclogue was addressed to him. The year after he 

 went to Greece as legate of Antony, and defeated 

 the Parthini, a people of Illyria. This was the 

 period of Virgil's eighth eclogue, also addressed to 

 Pollio. Thereafter he withdrew altogether from 

 political life, and survived till 4 A. D. Pollio was 

 the first to establish a public library at Rome, and 

 was the patron of Virgil, Horace, and other poets. 

 His own orations and tragedies and history have 

 perished, and it is most probably no great loss. 

 The severest critics are seldom themselves even 

 decent writers, and he, we are told, detected 

 Patavinitas in the limpid style of Livy, and 

 censured Cicero, Sallust, and C."esar. 



Pollock, an illustrious family descended from 

 Mr David Pollock, saddler to George III. in the 

 later part of the 18th century, who kept a shop 

 near Charing Cross. Three of his sons rose to 

 eminence Sir David Pollock, Chief -justice of 

 Bombay (died 1847); Sir Frederick Pollock; and 

 Field-marshal Sir George Pollock. The second, 

 FREDERICK, was born 23d September 1783, and 

 in 1802 passed from St Paul's School to Trinity 

 College, Cambridge, where in 1806 he graduated 

 B. A. as senior wrangler and first Smith's prizeman. 

 Next year he was elected a fellow of his college, 

 and called to the bar at the Middle Temple. He 

 travelled the northern circuit ; in 1827 became 

 a K.C. ; in 1831 was returned as a Tory for 

 Huntingdon ; was Attorney-general 1834-35 and 

 1841-44 ; and in the last year succeeded Lord 

 Abinger as Chief Baron of the Exchequer. He 

 hail been knighted in 1834, and on his retirement 

 in 1866 he received a baronetcy. He died 23d 

 August 1870. His eldest son, SIR FREDERICK 

 POLLOCK, born 3d April 1815, was educated at 

 Trinity College, Cambridge (1832-36), and in 1838 

 was called to the bar at the Inner Temple. He 

 was appointed a master of the Court of Exchequer 

 ( 1846), and Queen's Remembrancer ( 1874) ; in 1876 

 became senior master of the Supreme Court of Judi- 

 cature ; in 1886 resigned his offices ; and died 24th 

 Deceml>er 1888. Besides a good many quarterly 

 and magazine articles, he published a l>lank verse 

 translation of Dante ( 1854 ), and two pleasant 

 volumes of Personal Remembrances (1887). His 

 eldest son, also SIR FREDERICK POLLOCK, third 

 baronet, was born 10th December 1845, and from 

 Eton passed to Trinity, where in 1868 he obtained 

 a fellowship. He was called to the bar at Lincoln's 

 Inn in 1871, and liecame professor of Jurisprudence 

 at University College, London (1882), Corpus pro- 

 fessor of Jurisprudence at Oxford ( 1883), and pro- 

 fessor of Common Law (1884). Besides Spinoza 

 ( 1880), he has published books on Contract ( 1875), 

 Partnership (1877), Torts (1887; 4th ed. 1895), 

 Oxford Lectures ( 1891 ) ; and, with Maitland, The 

 Jtatory of English Law before Edward I. ( 2 vols. 

 1895). His younger brother, WALTER BERRIES 

 POLLOCK, born 21st February 1850, and likewise 

 educated at Eton and Trinity, was called to the 

 bar at the Inner Temple in 1874, and from 1884 

 till 1894 was editor of the Saturday Review. He 

 i.i author of Lectures on French Poets, The Picture's 

 Secret, Verses of Two Tongues, A Nine Men's 

 Morrice, Old and New, &c. GEORGE FREDERICK 

 POLLOCK ( born 1821 ), third son of the first baronet, 

 became a master of the Supreme Court of Judica- 

 tnre; and the fourth son, SIR CHARLES EDWARD 

 (Ixirn 1823), became a baron of Exchequer and 

 jmlj;e of the High Court. 



Sn: GEORGE POLLOCK, field-marshal, was born 

 in Westminster on 4th June 1786, and entered the 

 army of the East India Company as lieutenant of 

 artillery in 1803. Almost immediately after his 

 arrival in India he was engaged in active warfare, 

 in the liattli! ami siege of Deig in Bhartpur ( 1804), 

 at the siege of Bhartpur (1805), and in other 



operations in the war against Holkar. Nine years 

 later he saw some service in the Nepal (Goorkha) 

 campaigns of 1814-16, and in the first Burmese 

 war (1824-26) he took an active share, winning 

 his colonelcy. In 1838 he reached the rank of 

 major-general. After the massacre of General 

 Elphinstone and his forces in the passes of Af- 

 ghanistan (q. v. ), the Indian government decided 

 to send a force to the relief of Sir Robert Sale, 

 who was shut up in Jelalabad. The command of 

 the relieving force was given to General Pollock. 

 In April 1842 (5th to 16th) he forced the formidable 

 Khyber Pass, and reached Sir Robert Sale ; then, 

 after a few months' delay, he pushed on to Kabul, 

 his object being to restore the prestige of the 

 British arms and to rescue the British prisoners in 

 the hands of Akbar Khan. Both purposes were' 

 crowned with success ; he defeated the Afghan 

 chief at Tezeen, and destroyed the bazaar in 

 Kabul, and he recovered 135 British prisoners. 

 Then, after being joined by the forces of General 

 Nott, who had marched from Kandahar, he success- 

 fully conducted the united armies back to India. 

 He was rewarded with a G.C.B. and a political 

 appointment at Lucknow. He returned to England 

 in 1846, was director of the East India Company 

 for a couple of years (185456), and was created a 

 field-marshal in 1870, and a baronet in 1872 ; in 

 1871 he was appointed to the honourable olh'ce of 

 Constable of the Tower. He died on 6th October 

 1872, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. See 

 Life by C. R. Low (Lond. 1873). 



Pollok, ROBERT, a minor Scottish poet, was 

 born in 1799 at Muirhouse, in the parish of Eagles- 

 ham, Renfrewshire. He studied at the university 

 of Glasgow and the Divinity Hall of the Secession 

 Church, and was licensed to preach in 1827. In 

 the same year he published, by the advice of 

 Professor Wilson, The Course of Time, in ten 

 books, an attempt at a poetical description of the 

 spiritual life and destiny of man. It was warmly 

 received, but its praises fell on a dying ear, for the 

 poet had meantime been seized with a fatal con- 

 sumption. He set out, accompanied by his sister, 

 in tne hope to reach Italy, but found himself 

 unable to leave England, and died at Shirley 

 Common, near Southampton, 18th September 1827. 

 The Course of Time, which is still read in Scotland, 

 is curiously unequal in merit, as we might expect 

 when we remember that its two sources of inspira- 

 tion were Milton and the Shorter Catechism. It 

 contains eloquent passages, but portions of it read 

 like a dull sermon in poor blank verse. Pollok 

 published Tales of the Covenanters anonymously 

 before his poem. See the memoir by his brother 

 ( 1843) ; Rosaline Masson, Pollok andAytoun ( 'Fa- 

 mous Scots,' 1899). 



Pollokshaws, a manufacturing town of 

 Renfrewshire, on the White Cart, 3 miles SSW. 

 of Glasgow. It derives its name from the ' shaws ' 

 or woods of the estate of Pollok, held for more than 

 six centuries by the Maxwells. It was made a 

 burgh of barony in 1814 ; and its industries, first 

 started in 1742, now comprise power-loom weav- 

 ing, dyeing, tapestry and chenille manufacturing, 

 bleaching, iron-founding, paper-making, &c. Pop. 

 ( 1841 ) 4627 ; ( 1881 ) 9363 ; ( 1891 ) 10,228. 



Poll-tax, or CAPITATION TAX, a tax levied by 

 the poll or head (per capita). In England the 

 imposition of a graduated poll-tax (varying from 

 4d. to 4, according to rank and wealth) in the 

 time of Richard II. Ted to Wat Tyler's rebellion in 

 1381. A similar tax was imposed in 1513 ; and an 

 unpopular tax (varying from 12d. for a private 

 person to 100 for a duke) was assessed in 1678 and 

 abolished in 1689. In the United States most 

 states impose a poll-tax or capitation tax as a 



