PORTREE 



PORTSMOUTH 



335 



an hoar, and is carefully adjusted so that each suc- 

 ceeding negative occupies the same position on the 

 print as the preceding one ; thus a composite por- 

 trait will result, each of the ten likenesses having 

 an eq^ual share in its production. Where any char- 

 acteristic is common to all or several, that peculiarity 

 will be more or less pronounced ; where, however, 

 only one or two persons possess a peculiarity, it is 

 scarcely, if at all, noticeable. By taking a nega- 

 tive of a succession of positives a composite negative 

 will result capable of indefinite reproduction. The 

 result is often a highly idealised portrait representa- 

 tive of the family, or of the poet, statesman, mathe- 

 matician, gaol-bird, &c., and typical of the group it 

 represents. 



Portree. See SKYE. 



Portreeve, once the English name of the prin- 

 cipal magistrate in a port town, especially in 

 London (q. v. ). 



Port Royal. See JAMAICA. 



Port-Royal des Champs, a convent of Cis- 

 tercian nuns, nearly 8 miles SW. of Versailles, which 

 obtained much celebrity during the 17th century. 

 It was founded for nuns by a member of the family 

 of Montmorency in the early part of the 13th cen- 

 tury, and soon after its establishment obtained from 

 the pope the privilege of receiving lay persons, who, 

 without taking monastic vows, desired to live in 

 religious retirement. The discipline of the convent 

 having been much relaxed in the 15th and 16th 

 centuries, one of its worst abuses that of appoint- 

 ing the superior, not on account of fitness, but 

 from considerations of family or other worldly or 

 political motives became in the end the occasion 

 of its complete reformation under Marie Angeliqne 

 Arnauld (q.v.). The community was removed to 

 Paris in 1626, and in 1633 to a new convent, Port- 

 Royal de Paris ; and from this time the old estab- 

 lishment of Port- Royal des Champs was exclusively 

 devoted to the use of a lay community. This com- 

 munity soon numbered among its permanent 

 inmates some of the most distinguished scholars of 

 that age, Antony Arnauld, Le Maistre, Antony 

 and Louis Isaac le Maistre de Sacy, Nicole, 

 Lancelot, Sericonrt, and others. Their rule of 

 life was most austere, rising at 3 A.M., devoting 

 many hours to prayer and spiritual reading anil 

 instruction, and a portion of the day to manual 

 labour. One of their public services was the 

 establishment of a school, for which they prepared 

 well-known educational Ixxjks, the Port- Royal 

 Greek and Latin Grammars, General Grammar, 

 Geometry, Art of Thinking ( ' Port- Royal Logic,' 

 new ed. by Professor Spencer Baynes, 1881 ), &c. 

 But Fort- Royal is best known for its adhesion to the 

 Jansenist movement (see JANSEN). The nuns of 

 Port- Royal having refused tosubscribetheforniulary 

 condemning the Five Propositions, a royal order was 

 issued in 1660 for the suppression of the school and the 

 removal of the boarders of Port- Royal des Champs ; 

 and the abbess and several other nuns were arrested, 

 and conlined as prisoners in other monasteries. 

 After the 'Peace of Clement IX.' they were per- 

 mitted to return ; but the two communities were 

 placed under separate government. When the 

 tinal steps for the repression of the Jansenist party 

 were taken about 1707 a formal bull was issued by 

 Pope Clement XI. for the suppression of Port- 

 Royal des Champs, and the transfer of its property 

 to Port- Royal de Paris. The nuns were finally 

 dispersed and distributed over convents of different 

 orders throughout France. The property of the con- 

 vent and church was transferred to the Paris house, 

 and all the buildings of Port-Royal des Champs 

 were levelled to the ground by order of the king. 

 See Sainte-Beuve, Port-Royal (4th ed. 6 vols. 1878); 

 Charles Beard, Port-Royal (1 vols. 1861). 



Portrush, a watering-place in County Antrim, 

 6J miles by rail N. of CoTeraine, and 7 W. by S. of 

 the Giants' Causeway, with which it is connected 

 by an electric tramway (1883). The town is built 

 on the isthmus of a short peninsula, looking to the 

 Causeway cliffs on the one side, and to Inishowen 

 and almost Malin Head on the other. It has fine 

 stretches of firm sand for bathing, and has com- 

 munications by steamer with Morecambe and 

 Glasgow. Pop. 1322. 



Port Said, a town of Egypt, on the west side 

 of the Suez Canal, on a desolate strip of land 

 l*tween Lake Menzaleh and the Mediterranean. 

 The place owes its origin to the Suez Canal (q.v.), 

 being named after Said Pasha, its promoter, and 

 depends wholly on the canal trade, being mainly a 

 coaling station for steamers. Pop. (1882) 16,560. 



Portsea Island, a small island on the south 

 coast of Hampshire, has on its west side Ports- 

 mouth Harbour and on its east side Langston 

 Harbour, and is separated from the mainland on 

 the north by a narrow channel, crossed by several 

 bridges. It is four miles long by from two to three 

 broad, and contains the towns of Portsea and Ports- 

 mouth. 



Portsmouth, the chief naval arsenal of Great 

 Britain, and an important seaport, market-town, 

 and municipal, parliamentary, and county borough, 

 in the south of Hampshire, stands on the south- 

 west shore of Portsea Island (q.v.), at the entrance 

 to Portsmouth Harl>our, and opposite the town of 

 Gosport (q.v.), with which it communicates by 

 means of a steam-bridge. It is 74 miles SW. of 

 London, 44 W. of Brighton, and 23 SW. of South- 

 ampton. Besides the parish of Portsmouth, the 

 limits of the municipal and parliamentary horongh, 

 which are co-extensive, include also the parish and 

 town of Portsea, and the out-wards Landport and 

 Southsea, and comprise the whole of Portsea Island, 

 with the exception of a small portion in the north- 

 east corner. Pop. of the borough (1821) 69,479; 

 (1851) 72,096; (1871) 113,569; (1881) 127,989; 

 (1891) 159,255. Portsmouth is for the most part 

 :i mean-looking, dirty town, but has the most 

 complete fortifications in Britain. These comprise, 

 on the landward side, the outer line of the Ports- 

 down forts and the Hilsea lines ; to seaward, the 

 Spithead (q.v.) forts. A portion of the bastioned 

 ramparts, which formerly encircled both Ports- 

 month and Gosport, and were so imposing in 

 appearance, have since 1872 been removed as use- 

 less. Southsea, which is situated outside the 

 walls skirting Southsea Common, is rapidly in- 

 creasing, and is now a fashionable watering-place. 

 In the town proper there are few objects of note. 

 Pleasing views may be had from the ramparts and 

 batteries, of the harltour, the roadstead of Spit- 

 head, and the Isle of Wight. Many improvements 

 have been carried out in Portsmouth, including 

 improved drainage, and the opening of the Victoria 

 Park in 1878 ; also a new town-hall has been built 

 at a cost of 140,000, which was opened by the 

 Prince of Wales in 1890. Among the few notable 

 buildings may be mentioned the church of St 

 Thomas, whose chancel and transept date from the 

 close of the 12th century, the nave and tower from 

 1698, and which contains a ghastly cenotaph in 

 memory of the murdered Duke of Buckingham. 

 The Garrison Chapel, Early English in style, and 

 finely restored by Street in 1867, is a fragment of 

 the hospital of St Nicholas, founded in 1212 by 

 Bishop Peter de Repibus. In it Charles II. 

 married Catharine of Braganza ; and in front of it 

 is buried the brave Sir Charles James NapLer ( q.v. ), 

 who died in this neighbourhood in 1853. The 

 dockyard of Portsmouth, in the district of Portsea, 

 was till 1872 only 116 acres in extent; but vast 



