592
Pierrot—Pietersburg
moderate views Pierrepont enjoyed the personal friendship of Cromwell, but, although elected, he would not sit in the parliament of 1656, nor would he take the place offered to him in the Protector’s House of Lords. When Richard Cromwell succeeded his father, Pierrepont was an unobtrusive but powerful influence in directing the policy of the government, and after a short period of retirement in Richard’s fall he was chosen, early in 1660, a member of the council of state. He represented Nottinghamshire in the Convention Parliament of 1660, and probably was instrumental in saving the lives of some of the parliamentary leaders. At the general election of 1661 he was defeated, and, spending the remainder of his life in retirement, he died in 1678. Pierrepont married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Thomas Harris, Bart., of Tong Castle, Shropshire, by whom he had five sons and five daughters. His eldest son, Robert (d. 1666), was the father of Robert, 3rd earl, William, 4th earl, and Evelyn, 1st duke of Kingston, and his third son, Gervase (1649–1715), was created in 1714 baron Pierrepont of Hanslope, a title which became extinct on his death.
Pierrot (Ital. Pedrolino), the name given to the leading character in the French pantomime plays since the 18th century; transferred from the Italian stage, and revived especially in recent times. He is always in white, both face and costume, with a loose and daintily clownish garb, and is represented as of a freakish disposition. Modern pierrot plays have converted the pierrot into a romantic and even pathetic figure.
Pierson, Henry Hugo [properly Henry Hugh Pearson], (1815–1873), English composer, was the son of the Rev. Dr Pearson of St John’s College, Oxford, where he was born in 1815, his father afterwards became dean of Salisbury. Pierson was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge, and was at first intended for the career of medicine. His musical powers were too strong to be repressed, and after receiving instruction from Attwood and A. T. Corfe he went in 1839 to Germany to study under C. H. Rink, Tomaschek and Reissiger. He was elected Reid Professor of Music in Edinburgh in 1844, but, owing to a disagreement with the authorities, he resigned in the following year, and definitely adopted Germany as his country about the same time, making the change in his names noted above. His two operas, Leila (Hamburg, 1848) and Contarini (Hamburg, 1872), have not retained their hold upon the German public as his music to Faust has done, a work which until quite recently was frequently associated with Goethe’s drama. He was never recognized in England as he was in Germany, for most of his career fell in the period of the Mendelssohn fashion. His most important work was the oratorio Jerusalem, produced at the Norwich Festival of 1852, and subsequently given in London (Sacred Harmonic Society, 1853) and Wurzburg (1862). For the Norwich Festival (at one of the meetings a selection from his Faust music was given with success) he began an oratorio, Hezekiah, in 1869; it was not finished, but was given in a fragmentary condition at the festival of that year. These two large works and a number of Pierson’s songs, as well as the three overtures played at the Crystal Palace, reveal undeniable originality and a wealth of melodic ideas. He was weak in contrapuntal skill, and his music was wanting in outline and coherence, but in more fortunate conditions his great gifts might have been turned to better account. He died at Leipzig on the 28th of January 1873, and was buried at Sonning, Berks., of which parish his brother, Canon Pearson, was rector.
Pietas, in Roman mythology, the personification of the sense of duty towards God and man and the fatherland. According to a well known story, a young woman in humble circumstances, whose father (or mother) was lying in prison under sentence of death, without food, managed to gain admittance, and fed her parent with milk from her breast. To commemorate her filial affection a temple was dedicated (181 b.c.) by Manius Acilius Glabrio to Pietas in the Forum Holitorium at Rome, on the spot where the young woman had formerly lived. The temple was probably originally vowed by the elder Glabrio out of gratitude for the pietas shown during the engagement by his son, who may have saved his life, as the elder Africanus that of his father at the battle of Ticinus (Livy xxi. 46), the legend of the young woman (borrowed from the Greek story of Mycon and Pero, Val. Max. v. 4, ext. 1) was then connected with the temple by the identification of its site with that of the prison. There was another temple of Pietas near the Circus Flaminius, which is connected by Amatucci (Rivista di storia antica, 1903) with the story of the pietas of C. Flaminius (Val. Max. v. 4, 5), and regarded by him as the real seat of the cult of the goddess, the Pietas of the sanctuary dedicated by Glabrio being a Greek goddess. Pietas is represented on coins as a matron throwing incense on an altar, her attribute being a stork. Typical examples of “piety” are Aeneas and Antoninus Pius, who founded games called Eusebeia at Puteoli in honour of Hadrian.
See Val. Max. v. 4, 7; Pliny, Nat. hist. vii. 121; Livy xl. 34, Festus, sv.; G. Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Romer (1902), F. Kuntze, “Die Legende von der guten Tochter,” in Jahrbucher fur das klassische Altertum (1904), xiii. 280.
Pietermaritzburg, the capital of Natal, situated in 29° 46′ S., 30° 13′ E., 45 m. in a direct line (71 by rail) W.N.W. of Durban. It lies, 2200 ft. above the sea, north of the river Umsunduzi, and is surrounded by wooded hills. Of these the Town Hill, flat-topped, rises 1600 ft. above the town. Pop. (1904), 31,119, of whom 15,087 were whites, 10,752 Kaffirs, and 5280 Indians. The town is laid out on the usual Dutch South African plan—in rectangular blocks with a central market square. The public buildings include the legislative council chambers and the legislative assembly buildings, government house, the government offices, college, post office and market buildings. The town-hall, a fine building in a modified Renaissance style (characteristic of the majority of the other public buildings), has a lofty tower. It was completed in 1901, and replaces a building destroyed by fire in 1898. St Saviour’s is the cathedral church of the Anglican community. The headquarters of the Dutch Reformed Church are also in the town. There are monuments of Queen Victoria and Sir Theophilus Shepstone, and various war memorials—one commemorating those who fell in Zululand in 1879, and another those who lost their lives in the Boer War 1899–1902. A large park and botanical gardens add to the attractions of the town. A favourite mode of conveyance is by rickshaw. The climate is healthy and agreeable, the mean annual temperature being 65° F. (55° in June, 71° in February). The rainfall is about 38 in. a year, chiefly in the summer months (Oct.–Mar.), when the heat is tempered by violent thunderstorms.
Pietermaritzburg was founded early in 1839 by the newly arrived Dutch settlers in Natal, and its name commemorates two of their leaders—Piet Retief and Gerrit Maritz. From the time of its establishment it was the seat of the Volksraad of the Natal Boers, and on the submission of the Boers to the British in 1842 Maritzburg (as it is usually called) became the capital of the country. It was given a municipal board in 1848, and in 1854 was incorporated as a borough. Railway connexion with Durban was made in 1880, and in 1895 the line was extended to Johannesburg. The borough covers 44 sq. m. and includes numerous attractive suburbs. The rateable value is about £4,000,000. Various industries are carried on, including brick-making, tanning, brewing, and cart and wagon building.
See J. F. Ingram, The Story of an African City (Maritzburg, 1898).
Pietersburg, a town of the Transvaal, capital of the Zoutpansberg district, and 177 m. N N E. of Pretoria by rail. Pop. (1904), 3276, of whom 1620 were whites. The town is pleasantly situated, at an elevation of 4200 ft., on a small tributary of the Zand river affluent of the Limpopo, and is the place of most importance in the province north of Pretoria. From it roads run to Klein Letaba and other gold-mining centres in the neighbourhood, and through it passes the old route to Mashonaland, which crosses the Limpopo at Rhodes Drift. The Zoutpansberg district contains a comparatively dense Kaffir population, and a native newspaper is published at Pietersburg.
