644 
PER 
merce of life. The French Academy admitted him 
among its members in 1637. He had fet himfelf to work 
on a tranflation of Tacitus, when he was obliged to go to 
his province to take care of his fmall property. Retiring 
with his lifter to his eftate of Ablancourt, he patted the 
reft of his life upon it, only occaiionally fpending the 
winter at Paris, for the purpofe of printing his works. 
When, in 1662, Colbert made a kind of mufterof the 
men of letters in France, for the purpofe of felefling 
thofe who in their feveral kinds were bed qualified to la¬ 
bour for the glory of the king, (the leading obje£l of that 
reign,) d’Ablancourt, who had now made himfelf known 
by numerous writings, was fixed upon for hiftoriogra- 
pher to his majefty, with a penfion of 1000 crowns. 
But the king, when informed that he was a proteftant, 
declared that he would have no hiftorian who was not of 
his own religion ; and the appointment was fuperfeded : 
the penfion, however, was continued ta him as a man of 
learning; but he probably received little of it, fince he is 
laid to have died poor. After fevere fufferings from the 
Hone and gravel, which he bore with patience, he funk 
under them in Oftober 1664, in,his 59th year. 
It is chiefly as a tranflator that d’Ablancourt has ob¬ 
tained a name among polite writers, and his induftry in 
this office was remarkable. He publiffied verfions of Mi- 
nutius Felix, four of Cicero’s Orations, Tacitus, Lucian, 
Xenophon’s Anabafis, Arrian’s Hift. of Alexander, 
Csefar’s Commentaries, Thucydides with Xenophon’s 
Continuation, the Apophthegms of the Ancients, Fron- 
tinus on Stratagems, and Marmol’s Defcription of Africa. 
In all thefe he was very careful as to ftyle, and readily at¬ 
tended to the fuggeftions of his friends for its improve¬ 
ment; whence he was reckoned one of the beft French 
writers of the age. With refpeft to the mode of tranfla- 
ting, he adopted the fplendid but hazardous principle of 
waiting like an original author, with all the freedom 
and boldnefs of exprettion that would have been expedled 
on fuch a fuppofition. This occafionally led him to great 
deviations from the fenfe of his originals, fo that his ver¬ 
fions acquired the title of les belles vifdel/cs. On this ac¬ 
count, as well as the alteration of language fince tiie pe¬ 
riod in which he wrote, they are much fallen in eftimation. 
D’Ablancourt had ftudied hiftoryat Leyden, and the Bi¬ 
ble was one of the books on which he bellowed the clofeft 
attention. He read it with all the commentators, and 
was well acquainted with all its difficulties. With feve¬ 
ral other eminent men, he thought the natural arguments 
for the immortality of the foul were defective, and relied 
only on the faith infpired by revelation: on this fubjedl 
he wrote a Difcourfe to his friend Patru, which is publifhed 
in the works of the latter. Bayle. Moreri. 
PER'ROT I'SLAND, a fmall ifland in the river St. 
Laurence. Lat. 45. 24. N. Ion. 73. 36. W. 
PER'ROS GUER'IC, atown of France, in the depart¬ 
ment of the North Coafts: four miles north of Lannion, 
and feven north ofTreguier. 
PER RUKE, vulgarly Periwig, /. [perruque, Fr.] A 
wig. But the word was anciently ufed for a long head 
of natural hair, fuch, particularly, as there was care 
taken in the adjufting and trimming of. Menage de¬ 
rives the w'ord, by a long detour, from the Latin pilus, 
hair. The feveral ftages of its paffage, according to the 
critic, are pilus, pelus, pelutus, peluticus, pelutiea, perutica, 
peruca, peruque. The Latins called it coma ; whence part 
of Gaul took the denomination of Gallia Comata, from 
the long hair which the natives wore as a fign of freedom, 
Perruke is now ufed for a fet of falfe or borrowed 
hair, curled, buckled, woven on ftrong thread, and 
fewed together on a frame, or cawl ; anciently called ca- 
pillamentum, or falfe perruke. 
It is doubted, whether or not the life of perrukes was 
known among the ancients. It is true, they ufed falfe 
hair. Martial and Juvenal are merry with the women of 
their time, for making themfelves look young with their 
borrowed hair j with the men, who changed their colours 
PER 
according to the feafons; and with dotards, who hoped 
to deceive the Deftinies by.their white hair. 
But thefe feem to have fcarcely had any thing in com¬ 
mon with our perrukes ; and were, at heft, only com- 
pofed of hair painted, and glued together. Nothing can 
be more ridiculous than the defcription Lampridius gives 
of the emperor Commodus’s perruke; it was powdered 
with fcrapings of gold, and oiled (if we may ufe the ex- 
preffion) with glutinous perfumes for the powder to 
hang by. In effect, the ufe of perrukes, at leaft in their 
prefent mode, is not more than two hundred years old : 
the y'ear 1629 is reckoned the epocha of long perrukes; 
at which time they began to appear in Paris; whence 
they fpread, by degrees, throughout the reft of Europe. 
At firft it was reputed a fcandal for young people to wear 
them, becaufe the lofs of their hair at that age was attri¬ 
buted to adifeafe, the very name of which is a reproach : 
but at length the mode prevailed over the fcruple, and 
perfons of all ages and conditions have worn them ; 
foregoing, without any neceffity, the conveniences of 
their natural hair. However, it was fome time before 
ecclefiaftics came into the faffiion : the firft who aflumed 
the perruke were fome of the French clergy, in the year 
1660. Cardinal Grimaldi, in 1684, and the bilhop of 
Lavaur, in 1688, prohibited the ufe of'the perruke to all 
priefts, without a difpenfation, or neceffity. M. Thiers 
has a treatife exprefs, to prove the perruke indecent in 
an ecclefiaftic, and dire6lly contrary to the decrees and 
canons of councils. A prieft’s head embellifhed with an 
artificial hair curioufly adjufted, he efteems a monfter in 
the church ; nor can he conceive any thing fo fcandalous 
as an abbot with a florid countenance, heightened with a 
well-curled perruke. See the article Hair, vol. ix. 
PER'RY, / [poire, Fr. from poire.'] A drink made 
from pears, as cider from apples. See Cider, vol. iv. 
—Perry is the next liquor in efteem after cyder; in the 
ordering of which, let not your pears be over ripe before 
you grind them; and, with fome forts of pears, the mix¬ 
ing of a few crabs in the grinding is of great advantage, 
making perry equal to the redftreak cyder. Mortimer. 
The beft pears for perry, or at leaft the forts which 
have been hitherto deemed the fitteft for making this li¬ 
quor, are fo exceffively tart and harffi, that no one can 
think of eating them as fruit; for even hungry fwine will 
not eat them ; nay, hardly fo much as fmell to them. Of 
thefe the Bofbury pear, the Bareland pear, and the horfe 
pear, are the moft efteemed for perry in Worcefterffiire, 
and the fquafli pear, as it is called, in Gloucefterfhire.; in 
both which counties, as well as in fome of the adjacent 
parts, they are planted in the hedge-rows and moft com¬ 
mon fields. There is this advantageattending pear-trees, 
that they will thrive on land where apples will not fo 
much as live; and that fome of them grow to fuch a fize, 
that a Angle pear-tree, particularly of the Bolbury and 
the fquafli kind, has frequently been known to yield, in 
one feafon, from one to four hogfheads of perry. The 
Bofbury-pear is thought to yield the moft lading and 
moft vinous liquor. The John-pear, the Harpary-pear, 
the Drake-pear, the Mary-pear, the Lullum-pear, and fe- 
veraL others of the harfheft kinds, are efteemed the beft 
for perry; but the redder or more tawny they are, the 
more they are preferred. Pears, as well as apples, ffiould 
be full ripe before they are ground. 
Dr. Beale, in his general advertifements concerning 
cider, fubjoined to Mr. Evelyn’s Pomona, difapproves 
of Palladius’s faying, that perry will keep during the 
winter, but that it turns four as foon as the weather 
begins to be warm; and gives as his reafons for being of 
a contrary opinion, that he had himfelf tailed, at the end 
of fnmmer, a very brilk, lively, and vinous, liquor, made 
of horfe-pears; that he had often tried the juice of the 
Bofbury-pear, and found it both pleafanter and richer 
the fecond year, and ftill more fo the third, though kept 
only in common hogftieads, and in but indifferent cellars, 
without being bottled ; and that a very honeft, worthy. 
