P E R 
?ER 
. These are the number of years purchase fo 
be given for a perpetual annuity, on the sup- 
position that it is receivable yearly ; but as 
annuities are much more commonlv receiv- 
able half-yearly, and the interest of money is 
likewise usually paid half-yearlv, the per- 
petuity under these circumstances will be 
greater or less than the above, as the periods 
at which the annuity is payable are more or 
Jess frequent than those at which the rate of 
interest is supposed payable. Example at 4 
percent, interest: 
Interest Annuity payable, 
payable. Yearly. ' Half-yearly. 
Yearly, 25,000000 25,247548 
Half-yearly, 24,752475 25,000000 
Quarterly, 24 , 628109 24,875621 
Perpetuity is, where if all that have 
interest join in the conveyance, yet they can- 
not bar or pass the estate ; for, if by concur- 
rence of all having interest, the estate may be 
barred, it is no perpetuity. 1 Chan. Ca. 213. 
PERRON. See Architecture. 
PERRY, a drink made of pears, in the 
same manner as cyder is made from apples. 
See Cyder. 
PERSECUTION, is any pain or affliction 
which a person designedly inflicts upon ano- 
ther; and, in a more restrained sense, the 
sufferings of Christians on account of their re- 
ligion. Historians usually reckon ten general 
persecutions, the tirst of which was under the 
emperor Nero, thirty-one years after our 
Lord’s ascension ; when that emperor having 
set lire to the city of Rome, threw the odium 
of that execrable action on the Christians, 
who under that pretence were wrapped up in 
the skins of wild beast-;, and worried and de- 
voured by dogs ; others were crucified, and 
others burnt alive. The second was under 
Domitian, in the year 9j. In this persecu- 
tion St. John the apostle was sent to the isle 
of Patmos, in order to be employed in dig- 
ging in the mines. The third began in the 
third year of Trajan, in the year 100, and 
was carried on with great violence for several 
vears. The fourth was under Antoninus the 
philosopher, when the Christians were banish- 
ed from their houses, forbidden to shew their 
lieads, reproached, beaten, hurried from place 
to place, plundered, imprisoned, and stoned. 
The fifth began in the year 197, under the 
emperor Severus. The sixth began with the 
reign of the emperor Maximinus in 235. The 
seventh, which was the most dreadful perse- 
cution that had ever been known in the 
church, began in the year 250, in the reign of 
the emperor Decius, when the Christians 
were in all places driven from their habita- 
tions, stripped of their estates, tormented with 
racks, &c. The eighth began in the year 
257, in the fourth year of the reign of the em- 
peror Valerian. The ninth was under the 
efnperor Aurelian, A. D. 274, but this was 
very inconsiderable ; and the tenth began in 
the nineteenth year of Dioclesian, A. D. 30 3. 
In this dreadful persecution, which lasted ten 
years, houses filled with Christians were set 
on fire, and whole droves were tied together 
with vopes, and thrown into the sea. 
PERSEUS, in astronomy, a constellation 
of the northern hemisphere, which, according 
to the catalogues of Ptolemy and Tycho, con- 
tains twenty-nine stars; hut in the Britannic 
catalogue sixty-seven. 
PERSIAN WHEEL, an engine, or wheel, 
turned by a rivulet, or other stream of water, 
PER 
and fitted with open boxes at its cogs, to raise 
water for the overflowing of lands, or other 
purposes. See Hydraulics. 
it may be made of any size, according to 
the height the water is to be raised to, and 
the strength of the stream by which it is 
turned. This wheel is placed so that its 
bottom only is immersed in the stream, 
wherein the open boxes at its cogs are all filled 
one after another with water, which is raised 
with them to the upper part of the wheel’s 
circuit, and then naturally empties itself into 
a trough which carries it to the land. 
PERSIC ARIA, ar smart. See Polygo- 
num. 
PERSON, in grammar, a term applied to 
such nouns or pronouns, as being either pre- 
fixed or understood, are the nominatives in all 
inflections of a verb; or it is the agent or 
patient in all finite and personal verbs. 
PERSONAL GOODS. See Chattels. 
PERSONATE', is the representing a per- 
son by a fictitious or assumed character, so as 
to pass for the person represented. Person- 
ating bail, is by stat. 21 Jac. I. c. 26, a ca- 
pital felony. By various other statutes, per- 
sonating seamen entitled to wages, prize- 
money, &c. is also a capital felony. 
PERSOONfA, a genus of the class and 
order tetrandria monogynia. There is no 
calyx; petals four ; glands four, at the base 
of the germ ; stigma blunt ; drupe one- 
seeded. 
PERSPECTIV E, is the art of drawing the 
picture or representation of any visible ob- 
ject on a plane surface, in such manner as it 
would appear on some transparent surface, 
interposed between an object and the eye of 
an observer. Hence it is the foundation of 
true painting, and is so far necessary in re- 
gulating the practical designs ofan artist, that, 
without a knowledge of the principles thereof, 
he works at random, in not keeping to the 
nicety of measures and proportions. It has 
geometry for its foundation, and, consequently, 
truth for its support. It consists in determin- 
ing and fixing the geometric situation of 
points in a picture, which points connected, 
produce lines, and lines (straight and cur- 
vilineal) constitute the first principles of a 
picture, the grand outline and structure which 
the painter is to dress with light and shade. 
Hence it is perceivable that the mathematician 
directs the outlines, but does not finish the 
piece ; anil, on the other hand, the painter 
cannot make a sure beginning without the 
mathematician’s rules. 
We do not mean to say that these rules are 
to be applied to the minute inflections or 
curvatures of every leafy subject of a land- 
scape, or to all the smaller hollows and pro- 
minences of objects, or the muscular round- 
ness and softness of living creatures; for these, 
as well as some other of the niinutia: of art, 
are to be determined by the eye, and drawn 
by a steady hand. A landscape-painter may 
study nature in the inmost recesses of a forest, 
and there store hismindwith models of trees, 
shrubs, and foliage, and by such means he 
may become qualified to make a random pic- 
ture of an individual shrub, or a group of 
trees ; but if lie would go further and repre- 
sent a true protraiture of an avenue of these 
subjects, he must study the perspective di- 
minution of the most remote parts thereof, as 
well as their relative positions, or his proposed 
picture will become an anamorphosis. lie. 
3 B 2 
3/il 
may give a tolerable direct view of one side 
ot a building, but he can do no more; if he 
would give the representation of more than 
one side he must have recourse to the prin- 
ciples of perspective. 
The practical rules of perspective are in 
great measure applied to the delineation of 
architectural bodies, and other right-lined 
figures ; and a knowledge of the general laws 
oi this science is sure to inform the judgment 
of the manner in which lines should run, 
whereto they should tend, and where ter- 
minate, so as to produce the desired effect. 
Perspective is employed both in represent- 
ing the ichnographies and the scenographios 
of objects; and the former is frequently" 
found to be a necessary foundation of the 
latter. 
\\ e mean not to enter into an elaborate 
history of perspective, and say who it was that 
first discovered the properties of lines, which, 
when posited in certain order, would aid the 
representation of solid bodies, but rather pro- 
ceed immediately to the practical rules, after 
premising that all the practical geometry ne- 
cessary in this art lias been elucidated in our 
preceding volume under that head, to which 
we refer the student. 
The drawing-board, covered with a sheet 
of paper, may be termed the perspective 
plane, whereon the objects are to be delineat- 
ed^ See Plate Perspective, fig. 1. 
Parallel to the bottom of this plane let a 
pencil-line be drawn, mark it AB, and call it 
the ground-line. 
At about a third part, or somewhat more, 
, of the height of the intended picture, or prin- 
cipal figure in the picture, draw (with the 
help of a T square) a pencil-line parallel to 
the ground-line, mark it ho, and call it the 
horizontal line. The height of this line will 
be variable, as the ground on which the ob- 
server stands may be higher or lower from the 
base of the principal figure ; but, in general, 
when the draughtsman can choose his station, 
the height we have prescribed will be found 
the most convenient. 
On that part of the ground-line which the 
eye is supposed opposite to in drawing any 
picture, draw another pencil-line perpendi- 
cular thereto, as at C, crossing the horizontal 
line at U. This point D is called the point 
of sight, being the spot which the eye is im- 
mediately opposite to, both in lateral and per- 
pendicular position. 
The ground-line, and its perpendicular, may 
be divided into scales of equal parts, whereof 
CD may be supposed five feet, the height of 
the eye. 
The distance of the eye from the principal 
object must be set off in the horizontal line, 
both ways from the point of sight D. 'Hie 
choosing a proper distance is so essential a 
requisite, that, without a due observance 
thereof, a faithful representation of a pic- 
turesque object cannot be attained. 
The most favourable point of distance seems 
to be that which is a mean between the dia 
gonal ofan upper quarter of the picture (a« 
DG) set off from D to the perpendicular DIy 
continued as at x, and the length of the pic- 
ture set otf from G to the perpendicular, as 
at y; andjthe mean of the distance will be 
found at z, which will be somewhat about 
four times the height of the eye. This dis- 
tance must be set off on the horizontal Ji»e 
