683 



PRIMROSE PRINCES. 



known among the Romans ; the two sexes were 

 placed on a just level ; all the sons and all the 

 daughters were entitled to an equal portion of the 

 patrimonial estate. The Greeks, the Britons, the 

 Saxons, the Danes, &c., and even, originally, the 

 feudists, divided the lands equally, some among all 

 the children at large, some among the males only. 

 The equal division of the patrimonial estate among 

 the children is certainly the most obvious and natu- 

 ral way. When the emperors began to create 

 honorary feuds, or titles of nobility, it was found 

 necessary, in order to preserve their dignity, to 

 make them impartible, and, in consequence, de- 

 scendible to the eldest son alone. This example 

 was further enforced by the inconveniences that 

 attended the splitting of estates ; namely, the divi- 

 sion of the military services, the multitudes of infant 

 tenants incapable of performing any duty, the con- 

 sequent weakening of the strength of the kingdom, 

 and the inducing younger sons to take up with the 

 business and idleness of a country life, instead of 

 being serviceable to themselves and the public, by 

 engaging in mercantile, military, civil, or ecclesi- 

 astical employments. These reasons occasioned an 

 almost total rhange in the nature of feudal inheri- 

 tances; so that the eldest son began, universally, to 

 succeed to the whole of the lands in all military 

 tenures. 



In this condition, the feudal constitution was 

 established in England by William the conqueror. 

 Before the conquest, the descent of lands was to all 

 the sons alike. Socage estates in England fre- 

 quently descended to all the sons equally, till the 

 time of Henry III., when, in imitation of lands in 

 chivalry, they had almost entirely fallen into the 

 right of succession by primogeniture ; except in 

 Kent, where they gloried in the preservation of 

 their ancient gavelkind tenure, of which a principal 

 branch was the joint inheritance of all the sons ; and 

 except in some particular manors and townships, 

 where their local customs continued the descent 

 sometimes to all, sometimes to the youngest son 

 only, or in other more singular methods of succession. 

 By the English law, there is no right of primoge- 

 niture among females, except as to the inheritance 

 of the crown. (Black. Commentaries, ii, 215.) 

 The right of primogeniture, which calls the eldest 

 born to the crown, was not introduced into France 

 till very late ; it was unknown to the first and second 

 race of kings. The four sons of Clovis shared the 

 kingdom equally among themselves. Those of 

 Louis le Debonnaire did the same ; and it was not 

 till the race of Hugh Capet ascended the throne, 

 that the prerogative of succession to the crown was 

 appropriated to the first born. The right of primo- 

 geniture is now abolished in France ; but it pre- 

 vails in some degree in every other nation of 

 Europe. In the United States, no distinction of 

 age or sex is made in the descent of estates to 

 lineal descendants. Though primogeniture and 

 the preference of males are now thus universally 

 given up in that country, yet in some states they 

 remained in full force, and in others, modifications 

 of them continued for a long period. The English 

 common law, with regard to descents, prevailed in 

 New. Jersey until 1780, in Maryland and South 

 Carolina until 1786, and in Virginia until 1787. 

 In Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, 

 the eldest son, probably in imitation of the Jewish 

 law, had formerly a double portion of the real and 

 personal estate, and, in Delaware, of the real estate, 

 of his father. (Amer. Jurist, No. I. 80.) 



PRIMROSE (primula). A genus of beautiful 

 low Alpine plants. Some are among the earliest 

 flowers in spring, as the common primrose, the 



oxlip, and cowslip ; and several are cultivated in 

 gardens as ornamental plants. Their roots are 

 perennial ; the leaves almost always radical ; and 

 the flowers supported on a naked stem, and usually 

 disposed in a sort of umbel. The calyx is tubular ; 

 the corolla funnel-shaped, and divided at the sum- 

 mit into five equal lobes ; the stamens five in 

 number, with a single style ; and the capsule oval, 

 one-celled, and containing numerous seeds attached 

 to a central placenta. The varieties of the common 

 primrose, which have arisen from cultivation, are 

 very numerous. The P. auricula, a native of the 

 Alpine regions of Italy, Switzerland, and Germany, 

 is also a well known favourite with the florist. 



PRIMUM MOBILE, in the Ptolemaic astro- 

 nomy ; the ninth or highest sphere of the heavens, 

 whose centre is that of the world, and in comparison 

 of which the earth is but a point. This the ancients 

 supposed to contain all other spheres within it, and 

 to give motion to them, turning itself, and all of 

 them, quite round in twenty-four hours. 



PRINCE EDWARD'S ISLAND. See John's, 

 St. 



PRINCE OF WALES'S ISLAND (called by th 

 Malays Pulo Pinang, or Betel-nut island) is an 

 island in the East Indian sea, near the coast of 

 Siam ; latitude of its north-eastern point, 5 25' N. ; 

 long. 100 19' E. It measures about 160 square 

 miles, and has a fine harbour. Its basis is a mass 

 of granite. The western side affords abundance of 

 timber for ship-building. The remainder is ex- 

 tremely fertile, and yields large crops of pepper, 

 coffee, sugar, rice, ginger, yams, sweet potatoes, 

 betel-nut, cocoa-nut, spices, &c., and the elastic 

 gum-vine, resembling the caoutchouc plant. The 

 climate is temperate. George Town is the capital. 

 Population of the island and its dependencies in 

 1822, 51,207. 



PRINCE REGENT'S INLET. See North Polar 

 Expeditions, 



PRINCE WILLIAM'S SOUND ; a long inlet 

 of the sea, in the northerly regions of America, 

 which incloses a large peninsula, claimed by Rus- 

 sia. The inhabitants of this and the neigbonring 

 districts, of which the accompanying cut represents 

 a family, are a peculiar race, square, stout, with 



large heads, broad flat faces, and hooked noses. 

 They are clothed in long frocks of the skins of sea 

 and land animals, usually with the hair outwards.' 



PRINCE'S METAL; a mixture of copper and 

 zinc, in imitation of gold. 



PRINCES OF THE BLOOD; those persons 

 who have the same origin with the reigning hou^e, 

 and. after the extinction of the same, have the next 



