sound health, lived until the 30th of September 1811. Both were buried in the transept which Percy added to Dromore Cathedral.
Dr Percy’s first work was a translation from a Portuguese manuscript of a Chinese story, published in 1761. Two years later he published Five Pieces of Runic Poetry, translated from the Islandic. In 1763 he edited the earl of Surrey’s poems with, an essay on early blank verse, translated the Song of Solomon, and published a key to the New Testament. His Northern Antiquities (1770) is a translation from the French of Paul Henri Mallet His reprint of The Household Book of the Earl of Northumberland in 1512 is of the greatest value for the illustrations of domestic life in England at that period. But these works are of little estimation when compared with the Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765). This was based on an old manuscript collection of poetry, rescued by Percy in Humphrey Pitt’s house at Shifnal, Shropshire, from the hands of the housemaid who was about to light the fire with it. The manuscript was edited in its complete form by J. W. Hales and F. J. Furnivall in 1867–1868.
See A. C. C. Gaussen, Percy Prelate and Poet (1908). The Reliques has been edited by various hands, notably by H. B. Wheatley (1876) The fourth edition was by Percy’s nephew, Thomas Percy (1768–1808), himself a writer of verse.
PERDICCAS, the name of three kings of Macedonia, who reigned respectively c. 700, c. 454–413, and 364–359 B.C., and of one of Alexander the Great’s generals, son of Orontes, a descendant of the independent princes of the province of Orestis. The last named distinguished himself at the conquest of Thebes (335 B.C.), and held an important command in the Indian campaigns of Alexander. In the settlement made after Alexander’s death (323) it was finally agreed that Philip Arrhidaeus, an insane son of the great Philip, and Roxana’s unborn child (if a son) should be recognized as joint kings, Perdiccas being appointed, according to one account, guardian and regent, according to another, chiliarch under Craterus. He soon showed himself intolerant to any rivals, and acting in the name of the two kings (for Roxana gave birth to a son, Alexander IV.) sought to hold the empire together under his own hand. His most loyal supporter was Eumenes, governor of Cappadocia and Paphlagonia. These provinces had not yet been conquered by the Macedonians, and Antigonus (governor of Phyrgia, Lycia and Pamphylia) refused to undertake the task at the command of Perdiccas. Having been summoned to the royal presence to stand his trial for disobedience, Antigonus fled to Europe and entered into alliance with Antipater, Craterus and Ptolemy, the son of Lagus. Peridiccas, leaving the war in Asia Minor to Eumenes, marched to attack Ptolemy in Egypt. He reached Pelusium, but failed to cross the Nile. A mutiny broke out amongst the troops, disheartened by failure and exasperated by his severity, and Perdiccas was assassinated by some of his officers (321).
See Macedonian Empire. (E. R. B.)
PEREDA, JOSÉ MARÍA DE (1833–1906), one of the most
distinguished of modern Spanish novelists, was born at Polanco
near Santander on the 6th of February 1833. He was educated
at the Instituto Cantabro of Santander, whence he went in
1852 to Madrid, where he studied with the vague purpose of
entering the artillery corps Abandoning this design after
three years’ trial, he returned home and began his literary career
by contributing articles to a local journal, La Abeja montañesa
in 1858 He also wrote much in a weekly paper, El Tio Cayetán,
and in 1864 he collected his powerful realistic sketches of local life
and manners under the title of Escenas montañesas. Pereda
fought against the revolution of 1868 in El Tio Cayetán, writing
the newspaper almost single-handed. In 1871 he was elected as
the Carlist deputy for Cabuérniga. In this same year he published
a second series of Escenas montañesas under the title of
Tipos y paisajes; and in 1876 appeared Bocetos al temple,
three tales, in one of which the author describes his disenchanting
political experiences. The Tipos trashumantes belongs to the
year 1877, as does El Buey suelto, which was intended as a reply
to the thesis of Balzac’s work, Les Petites misères de la vie conjugale.
More and More pessimistic as to the political future
of his country, Pereda took occasion in Don Gonzalo Gonzalez de la Gonzalera (1879) to ridicule the Revolution as he had seen
it at work, and to pour scorn upon the nouveaux riches who
exploited Liberalism for their personal ends. Two novels by
his friend Pérez Galdós, Doña Perfecta and Gloria, drew from
Pereda a reply, De Tal palo tal astilla (1880), in which he endeavours
to show that tolerance in religious matters is disastrous
alike to nations and to individuals. The Esbozos y rasguños
(1881) is of lighter material, and is less attractive than El Sabor de la Tierruca (1882), a striking piece of landscape which won
immediate appreciation. New ground was broken in Pedro Sánchez
(1883), where Pereda leaves his native province to
portray the disillusion of a sincere enthusiast who has plunged
into the political life of the capital. Pereda’s masterpiece is
Sotileza (1884), a vigorous rendering of marine life by an artist
who perceives and admires the daily heroisms of his fisher-folk.
It has often been alleged against the author that he confines
himself to provincial life, to lowly personages and to unrefined
subjects, and no doubt an anxiety to clear himself from this
absurd reproach led him to attempt a description of society at
the capital in La Montálvez (1888), which is certainly the least
interesting of his performances. In La Puchera (1889) he
returned to the marine subjects which he knew and loved best.
Again, in Peñas arriba (1895), the love of country life is manifested
in the masterly contrast between the healthy, moral
labour of the fields and the corrupt, squalid life of cities.
Pereda’s fame was now established; the statutes of the Spanish
Academy, which require members to reside at Madrid, were
suspended in his favour (1896). But his literary career was
over. The tragic death of his eldest son, the disastrous campaign
in Cuba and the Philippines, darkened his closing years,
and his health failed long before his death at Polanco on the 1st of March 1906.
Pereda belongs to the native realistic school of Spain, which. founded by the unknown author of Lazarillo de Tormes, was continued by Meteo Alemán, Cervantes, Quevedo, Castillo Solórzano and many others. With the single exception of Cervantes, however, the picaresque writers are almost entirely wanting in the spirit of generous sympathy and tenderness which constitutes a great part of Pereda’s charm. His realism is purely Spanish, as remote from Zola’s moroseness as from the graceful sentimentality of Pierre Loti. Few 19th-century writers possessed the virile temperament of Pereda, and, with the single exception of Tolstoy, none kept a moral end more steadily in view. This didactic tendency unquestionably injures his effects. Moreover, his grim satire occasionally degenerates into somewhat truculent caricature, and the excessive use of dialect and technical terms (which caused him to supply Sotileza with a brief vocabulary) is a grave artistic blemish. But he saw, knew, understood character; he created not only types, but living personages, such as Andrés, Cleto and Muergo in Sotileza, Pedro Juan and Pilara in La Puchera; and he personified the tumult and calm of the sea with more power than Victor Hugo displayed in Les Travailleurs de la mer. His descriptive powers were of the highest order, and his style, pure of all affectations and embellishments, is of singular force and suppleness. With all his limitations, he was as original a genius as Spain produced during the 19th century. (J. F.-K.)
PÈRE DAVID’S DEER, the mi-lou of the Chinese, an aberrant and strangely mule-like deer (q.v.), the first evidence of whose existence was made known in Europe by the Abbé (then Père) David, who in 1865 obtained the skin of a specimen from the herd kept at that time in the imperial park at Pekin. This skin, with the skull and antlers, was sent to Paris, where it was described in 1866 by Professor Milne-Edwards. In lacking a brow-tine, and dividing in a regular fork-like manner some distance above the burr, the large and cylindrical antlers of this species conform to the general structural type characteristic of the American deer. The front prong of the main fork, however,
