PROPERTY PROPORTION. 



Ovid niul Tibullus, but is distinguished for his art 

 niul ingrimity, and tlie brilliancy of his style. He 

 is particularly happy in his description of heroic 

 I. \\'e have tour books of his elegies. The 

 last of the fourth book is the most highly esteemed, 

 and is often called the " queen of elegies ;'' yet it 

 is not wholly free from the usual fault of the 

 author a straining after originality of expression. 

 Love is the subject of many of his elegies, but not 

 a noble, spiritual love, which, indeed, we must not 

 look for in any Roman poet of that age, although 

 all were not so entirely abandoned as Propertius to 

 licentious descriptions. There are also in the 

 fourth book several poems which, although written 

 in the elegiac measure, yet, from their subjects, 

 belong to the class of didactic and narrative poems. 

 He makes a display of his learning when he handles 

 subjects of mythology, and therefore affects our 

 feelings less. In general, he imitates the Grecian 

 elegiac poets, particularly Callimachus the Alexan- 

 drian. \Ve know nothing more of his life than 

 that, after the end of the civil war, he found a 

 patron at Rome in Maecenas, through whom he 

 obtained the favour of the emperor. He appears 

 to have been the bosom frie,nd of Ovid, to have 

 lived mostly in Rome, in the enjoyments of love 

 and poetry, and to have died there in the prime of 

 life (about 12 years B. C.) The elegies of Propertius 

 are usually published with the poems of Tibullus 

 and Catullus. The best editions are Brouckhusius 

 (Amsterdam, 1702 and 1727, 4to.), Vulpius (Padua, 

 1755, 2 vols.), and Burmann and Santen (Utrecht, 

 1780, 4to.) The latest large critical edition, with 

 a commentary, is by Kuinoel (Leipsic, 1804 5, 2 

 vols.), and by Lachmann (Leipsic, 1816). 



PROPERTY, LITERARY. See Literary Property, 

 and Copyright. 



PROPHETS ; among the Hebrews, inspired 

 teachers sent by God to declare his purposes to his 

 people. The Jews distinguish the authors of the 

 sacred books into the older and later prophets. 

 The former are the authors of the books of Joshua, 

 Judges, Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles ; the latter 

 are Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the twelve minor 

 prophets. David and Daniel they do not call pro- 

 phets, because they did not live in solitude. Moses 

 they do not include in this classification, but rank 

 him apart by himself. Besides the writers of the 

 sacred books, we find mention of other prophets 

 among the Hebrews, who were sent to warn or 

 instruct that wayward race, and who were some- 

 times not only endowed with the gift of prophecy, 

 out with the power of working miracles, such as 

 Elijah, Elisha, &c. Samuel, the last of the judges, 

 founded the school of the prophets, in which young 

 men of all the tribes were instructed in the law and 

 sacred poetry. From these schools proceeded the 

 preachers mentioned in the Old Testament, who 

 purified and exalted the religious and moral system 

 of their nation, defended the Mosaic theocracy 

 against the encroachments of the kings and the lax- 

 ness of the priests (who wf re occupied merely with 

 religious rites), and foretold the fate of states, 

 with warnings, denunciations, and consolatory 

 prophecies. The deep sense and religious fire of 

 these men, so far before their age, present a 

 phenomenon that can be explained only by the 

 special action of divine influences. They appear, 

 therefore, as messengers of God, divinely inspired 

 seers; and their preachings and songs were pre- 

 served fay the Hebrews as the word of God, and 

 among them were rendered more impressive by 

 their connexion with poetry and music. Their 

 constant object was the preservation of the doc- 

 trines of revelation in their purity. The originality, 



richness, and sublimity of their writings still awaken 

 the admiration even of tiiose who deny them the 

 character of prophecies. The writings of the pro- 

 phets form one of the three canonical divisions of 

 the Old Testament, and consist of sixteen books. 

 (See Bible.) Four are the books of Isaiah, Jere- 

 miah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, called the " greater 

 prophets," from the length of their writings; the 

 other twelve of the " minor" or " lesser prophets," 

 so called from the shortness of their writings, 

 namely, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, 

 Micah, ,Nahum, Habakkuk, Haggai, Zechariah, 

 Zephaniah, and Malachi. (See the articles.) Al- 

 though most Christians consider the prophecies of 

 the Messiah con'ained in these books as one of the 

 evidences of the truth of Christianity, yet some 

 reject this argument. Among the latter are the 

 German rationalists of the present day. (See Sher- 

 lock, Newton, Faber, &c., on the prophecies ; and 

 the works of Eichhorn De Hebraische Propheten, 

 1812, 2 vols.), and Rosemniiller. 



In modern times, religious fanatics have frequently 

 pretended to be prophets, without being able to 

 demonstrate their claims to the title. The seven- 

 teenth century, in particular, was fruitful in prophets 

 and prophetesses; and, even in the beginning of the 

 eighteenth century, the prophets of the Cevennes 

 excited a temporary attention. (See Cevennes, and 

 Camisardes .) They were called, in England, the 

 " French prophets." The subjects of their prophe- 

 cies were the appearance of Antichrist, judgments 

 against the city of London, &c. They were con- 

 demned as false prophets and disturbers of the pub- 

 lic peace, to fines, and to the pillory. 



PROPOLIS. See Bee. 



PROPONTIS (so called by the ancients, from 

 the bordering kingdom of Pontus); the sea lying 

 between the ^Egean and the Black seas, and con- 

 nected with them by the Hellespont and the Thra- 

 cian Bosphorus ; now called, from the largest of its 

 islands, the sea of Marmora. 



PROPORTION is the equality of two ratios. 

 The comparison of two magnitudes, in mathema- 

 tics, may be effected in two different ways: it may 

 be determined by how many units the one is greater 

 than the other (difference); or one magnitude may 

 be taken as the measure of the other, and it may 

 be determined how often it is contained in it (quo- 

 tient.) The former relation is called an arithmetical 

 proportion, the latter a geometrical proportion. The 

 difference in the arithmetical, and the quotient in the 

 geometrical proportion, are called the ratio of the 

 proportion. Every proportion consists of four terms, 

 two extremes, and two means. A proportion in 

 which the two means are equal is called a continual 

 proportion ; one in which they are unequal, a dis- 

 crete or interrupted proportion. As, in every arith- 

 metical proportion, the sum of the extremes is equal 

 to that of the means, and, in geometrical propor- 

 tions, the product of the means is equal to the pro- 

 duct of the extremes, either extreme (or mean) may 

 be found in the former, by subtracting the given 

 extreme 'or mean) from the sum of the given means 

 (or extremes); in the latter, by dividing the product 

 of the means (or extremes) by the given extreme 

 (or mean). The mean of a continued arithmetical 

 proportion is found by taking half of the sum of the 

 extremes; an extreme, by subtracting the given 

 extreme from double of the mean. In a continued 

 geometrical proportion, the mean is found by ex- 

 tracting the square root of the product of the ex- 

 tremes ; and an extreme, by dividing the square of 

 the means by the given extreme. If we make the 

 fourth term of the proportion the mean of a new 

 continued proportion, and so on, as, for instance 



