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[in tiie margin, perfuajille] words of man’s wifdom. 
i Cor. ii. 4. 
PERSUA'SIBLENESS, f The quality of being flexi¬ 
ble by perfuafion. 
PERSUA'SION, f [Fr. from perfuafus, Lat.] The aft 
of perfuading; the aft of influencing by expollulation ; 
the aft of gaining or attempting the paflions : 
If’t prove thy fortune, Polydore, to conquer, 
(For thou haft all the arts of fine perfuafion,) 
Trull me, and let me know thy love’s fuccefs. Otivay. 
The ftate of being perfuaded; opinion.—The molt certain 
token of evident.goodnefs is, if the general perfuafion of all 
men does fo account it. Hooker. —When we have no other 
certainty of being in the right, but our own perfuafions 
that we are fo; this may often be but making one error the 
gage for another. Gov. of the Tongue. —The obedient and 
the men of praftice (hall ride upon thofe clouds, and 
triumph over their prefent imperfeftions; till perfuafion 
pafs into knowledge, and knowledge advance into aflu- 
rance, and all come at length to be completed in the bea- 
tifick vifion. South. 
PERSUA'SIVE, adj. Having the power of perfuading; 
having influence on the paflions.—In prayer, we do not 
fo much refpeft what precepts art delivereth, touching 
the method of perfuafive utterance in the prefence of great 
men, as what doth molt avail to our own edification in 
piety and godly zeal. Hooker. 
PERSUA'SIVE, f Exhortation; argument or impor¬ 
tunity employed to direft the mind to any purpofe or 
purfuit.—Thefe were the arguments here ufed by this 
great Apoftle; arguments, in comparifon of which he 
knew that the molt flowing rhetorick of words would be 
but a poor and faint perfuafive. South. 
PERSUA'SIVELY, adv. In fuch a manner as to per- 
fuade.—Many who live upon their eftates cannot fo much 
as tell a (lory, much lefs lpeak clearly and perfua/ively in 
any bufinefs. Locke on Education. 
The ferpent with me 
Perfuafively hath fo prevail’d, that I 
Have alfo tailed. Milton's P. L, 
PERSUA'SIVENESS, f. Influence on the paflions.— 
An opinion of the fuccefsfulnefs of the work being as ne- 
ceflary to found a purpofe of undertaking it, as either the 
authority of commands, or the perfuafivenefs of promifes, 
or pungency of menaces, can be. Hammond on Fundamen¬ 
tals. 
PERSUA'SORY, adj. [perfuaforius, Lat. from perfuade.] 
Plaving the power to perfuade.—Neither is this pcrjuafory. 
Brown. 
PERSU'E,/. [ufed by Spenfer for] Purfuit: 
By trait of blood, which (lie had frelhly feene 
To have befprinkled all the grafly greene; 
By the great perfue which (he there perceav’d 
Well hoped (lie, the bead engor’d had beene, 
And made more hafte the life to have bereav’d. F. Q. 
PERSULTA'TION, f. [from the Lat. per through, 
and fulto, to leap.'] An eruption of blood through the vef- 
fels. Scott. 
PERSUR', a town of Hindooftan, in Allahabad: ten 
miles eaft-north-eaft of Gazypour. 
PER'SWAR, a town of Hindooftan, in the circar of 
Gurrah : fifteen miles fouth of Mahur. 
PERT, adj. [Welfti and Dutch ; impertinent, French.] 
Lively ; briflc ; (mart.—Awake the pert and nimble fpirit 
of mirth. Shahefpeare. 
From pen t to ftupid finks fupinely down; 
In youth a coxcomb, and in age a clown. SpeSator. 
Saucy; petulant; with bold and garrulous loquacity.—• 
All fervants might challenge the lame liberty, and grow 
pert upon their mafters ; and, when this faucinefs became 
univerfal, what lefs niifchief could be expeited than an 
old Scythian rebellion ? Collier on Pride. 
She fcarcely lift’ned to their chat, 
Further than fometimes by a frown. 
When they grew pert, to pull them down. Sivift. 
PERT, f. An afluming, over-forward, or impertinent, 
perfon: 
O then how blind to all that truth requires, 
Who think it freedom when a pert. afpires ! Goldfrmth. 
PERTABGUR', a fort of Hindooftan : thirty miles 
north-eaft of Allahabad. Lat. 28. 58. N. Ion. 82. 23. E, 
PERTABPOU'R, a town of Hindooftan, in Oude : 
fifty-two miles north-eaft of Manickpour. 
PERTABPOU'R, a town of Hindooftan, in Bengal: 
fifteen miles north-weft; of Midnapour. Lat. 22. 35. N. 
Ion. 87. 10. E. 
To PERTAI'N, v. n. [pertineo, Lat.] To belong; to 
relate.—A cheveron or rafter of an houfe, a very honour¬ 
able bearing, is never feen in the coat of a king, becaufe 
it pertaineth to a mechanical profeflion. Peacham. 
PER'TELS, a town of Auftria: fix miles north of Boh- 
mifti Waidhofen. 
To PERTER'EBRATE, v. a. [from the Lat. per, 
through, and terchro, to bore.] To bore through. Cole. 
PERTEREBRA'TION, f. The ait of boring through. 
PERTH, a royal burgh, and the county-town of Perth- 
fliire, Scotland, is fituated in the middle of a verdant 
plain, on the vveftern bank of the river Tay, at the dif- 
tance of forty miles and a half north by weft from Edin¬ 
burgh. This plain is divided by the town into two parts, 
called the North and South Inches, or Iflands, each of 
which meafures about a mile and a half in circumference, 
and both are appropriated for the benefit and amufemertt 
of the inhabitants of the place. 
Perth is a town of very high antiquity, and is generally 
allowed to have owed its origin to the celebrated Roman 
general Agricola, who penetrated into this part of the 
country about the year 70. He is faid to have fixed on 
this fpot as the feite, originally of a winter-camp, and 
afterwards of a colonial town, from the refemblance its 
feenery bears to that in the vicinity of ancient Rome. So 
llriking is the fimilitude, indeed, that the Roman foldiers, 
when they firft faw the river Tay, and the adjacent plain, 
are recorded to have exclaimed with one confent, “ Ecce 
Tiber! Ecce Campus Martins! Behold the Tiber! Behold 
the field of Mars.” Hence the Tay was called New Ti¬ 
ler by the Italians for many centuries; and Fordun, a 
Scottifli hiitorian, gives the name of Tyler-Mere to an ex- 
tenfive moor which lies weft from the town. An aque¬ 
duct, faid to have been conftruCted here by Agricola, is 
dill in exiftence, and fupplies the mills and wells with 
water. In ancient times, when the town was forti¬ 
fied,-it alfo fupplied the ditches by which the latter was 
furrounded. 
Of the hiftory of Perth during its Roman occupation, 
and for feveral centuries after the retreat of that people 
from Britain, nothing Certain is known. Neither is it re¬ 
corded at what period it became a chartered town. Alex¬ 
ander Necham, an Englifh writer, who read leCtures on 
hiftory at Paris in 1180, deferibed Perth as a place of 
great opulence. In 1210, according to the Scottifli hifto- 
rians, it was (trongly fortified by king William, who alfo 
renewed its former charters, and granted it many addi¬ 
tional privileges. At that time Perth w-as reckoned the 
capital city of Scotland; and even at the prefent day it 
ranks inferior only to Edinburgh and Glafgow. Between 
the years 1201 and 1459, no fewer than fourteen great na-- 
fional councils were held here. During the fame period, 
Perth was alfo the ufual refidence of the Scottifh monarch, 
and confequently of the nobility, many of whofe ancient 
manfions (till adorn its ftreets. It was then likewife, as it is 
(till, an extenfive commercial town. Fordun informs us, 
that the merchants of Perth vifited, in tbeir own (hips, 
the Hanfe-towns; and it is a part of the eulogiurn con¬ 
ferred on Alexander III. who died in 1286, that he devi- 
fed fuccefsful meafures for fecuring the trading-ftvips of 
4 t ha t 
