to another view, the realm of Hades was beyond the ocean in
the far west, which to the Greek was always the region of darkness
and death, as the east of light and life. This is the view of Hades
presented in the Odyssey. Besides this gloomy region, we find in another passage of the Odyssey (iv. 561 seq.) a picture of Elysium, a happy land at the ends of the earth, where rain and snow fall not, but the cool west wind blows and men live at ease. After Homer this happy land, the abode of the good after death, was known as the Isles of the Blest (q.v.).[1] But in the oldest Greek
mythology the “house of Hades” was simply the home of the dead,
good and bad alike, who led a dim and shadowy reflection of life
on earth.
See article “Hades,” in Roscher’s Lexikon der Mythologie; Preller-Robert, Griechische Mythologie (1894); L. Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, vol. iii., who regards Hades as an evolution from Zeus and his counterpart, according to J. E. Harrison, in Classical Review (Feb. 1908), Hades is the under-world sun.
PLUTOCRACY (Gr. πλουτοκρατία, from πλοῦτος, wealth,
and κράτος, power), government or power exercised by the
possessors of wealth, power obtained by the mere possession
of riches; hence a body or ruling class whose influence is due only
to their money.
PLUTO MONKEY, a guenon, Cercopithecus (Mona) leucampyx, nearly allied to the Mona (q.v.), which takes its name from the black fur of the under-parts, passing into blackish grey on the head and back. The violet-coloured face, which has no beard, is fringed by large bushy whiskers and surmounted by a white band above the brows. The range of the species extends from the Congo and Angola to Nyasaland. (See Primates.)
PLUTUS, in Greek mythology, son of Iasion and Demeter, the personification of wealth πλοῦτος. According to Aristophanes, he was blinded by Zeus because he distributed his gifts without regard to merit. At Thebes there was a statue of Fortune holding the child Plutus in her arms; at Athens he was
similarly represented in the arms of Peace; at Thespiae he was represented standing beside Athena the Worker. Elsewhere he was represented as a boy with a cornu copiae. He is the subject of one of the extant comedies of Aristophanes, the Plutus.
PLYMOUTH, EARLS OF, a title first borne by Charles
(1657–1680), an illegitimate son of the English king Charles II. by Catharine Pegge, who was created earl in 1675. The title became extinct on his death in October 1680. In 1682 Thomas Windsor Hickman-Windsor, 7th Baron Windsor de Stanwell (c. 1627–1687), who had fought for Charles I. at Naseby, was created earl of Plymouth. His father was Dixie Hickman of Kew, Surrey, and his mother, Elizabeth, was a sister of Thomas Windsor, 6th Baron Windsor de Stanwell (1596–1641); having inherited the estates of his uncle and taken the additional name of Windsor, the abeyance of the barony of Windsor de Stanwell was terminated in his favour and he became the 7th baron. From 1661–1663 he was nominally governor of Jamaica. His grandson Other (1679–1725) was the 2nd earl, and the earldom became extinct when Henry, the 8th earl, died in December 1843. Called again out of abeyance, the barony of Windsor came in 1855 to Harriet, a daughter of Other Archer, the 6th earl (1789–1833), and the wife of Robert Henry Clive (1789–1854), a younger son of Edward Clive, 1st earl of Powis. She was succeeded in 1869 by her grandson, Robert George Windsor-Clive, who became the 14th Baron Windsor. After serving as paymaster-general in 1891–1892 and first commissioner of works from 1902–1905, Lord Windsor was created earl of Plymouth in 1905.
PLYMOUTH, a municipal county (1888, extended 1896)
and parliamentary borough and seaport of Devonshire, England, 231 m. W.S.W. of London. Pop. (1910), 126,266. It lies at
the head of Plymouth Sound, stretching westward from the
river Plym towards the mouth of the Tamar, from which it is
separated by the township of East Stonehouse and the borough
of Devonport, the two later constituting with it the “Three
Towns.” The prince of Wales is lord high steward of the
borough, which is divided into 14 wards, under a mayor,
14 aldermen and 42 councillors. The parliamentary borough,
returning two members, is not coextensive with the municipal
borough, part of the latter being in the Tavistock (county) division
of Devon. The water frontage of the Three Towns consists
of Plymouth Sound, with its inlets, in order from east to west,
the Catwater, Sutton Pool, Mill Bay, Stonehouse Pool and the
Hamoaze. The Catwater and Hamoaze are flanked on the east
and west respectively by high ground, on which are built forts
that command the harbour and its approaches. On the western
side of the entrance to Catwater is the Citadel, founded in the
reign of Henry VIII. and rebuilt by Charles II. The adjacent
Hoe extends along the northern edge of the Sound, and from it
can be obtained a splendid view, embracing the rugged Staddon
Heights on the east and the wooded slopes of Mount Edgcumbe on
the west. To the north is seen the town of Plymouth rising up
to the hills known as Mannamead. On the site of an old Trinity
House obelisk landmark is Smeaton’s lighthouse tower, removed
from its original position on the Eddystone Reef in 1884. It
is now used as a wind-recording station in connexion with
the adjoining Meteorological Observatory. On the Hoe there
stands the striking Drake statue by Sir Edgar Boehm, and the
Armada Memorial, while at the north-east end is an obelisk
monument to the memory of troops engaged in the South African
War. A municipal bowling-green recalls a probable early
use of the Hoe. Adjacent to the Citadel, at its south-west angle,
is the Marine Biological Station, and, further west, projects the
Promenade Pier. In the Sound is Drake’s (formerly St Nicholas’s)
Island, now strongly fortified, at one time the property of the
corporation, and serving in Stuart times as a place of imprisonment
of certain Plymouth Baptist ministers. Few evidences,
however, of the antiquity of the town remain. Below, and to
the north-east of the Citadel, is the Barbican with its “Mayflower”
commemoration stone, a large fish-buying trade being
done on the adjacent quay, near which is the Custom House.
From the Barbican winding streets lead past the old Guildhall
(1800) which contained the municipal library, pending its
removal to more commodious quarters in the new museum,
opposite the technical and art schools, situated in the most
northern part of the town. At a short distance west stands
the new Guildhall, with the enlarged post office, central police
station, law courts and municipal buildings in close proximity.
Opened in 1874, the Guildhall is built in a bold, rather exotic,
Early Pointed French style. The tower at the south-west end
is 190 ft. high, and the building is ornamented with a series of
coloured windows relating to events in the history of Plymouth
or commemorating men and families connected with the town.
The large hall contains a fine organ. In the mayor’s parlour
is a contemporary portrait of Sir Francis Drake and some
interesting prints of the town of Plymouth.
Near the eastern entrance to Guildhall Square is St Andrews, the mother church of Plymouth, erected on the site of a chapel dedicated to the Virgin. The church is typical of the Devonshire Perpendicular style of 1480–1520, but, though large, presents few features of artistic or archaeological interest. It underwent complete restoration in 1874. The burying-ground on the north side has been levelled, and on it erected a stone monument. The church, furnished with one of the finest organs in the west of England, contains the tombs of a son of Admiral Vernon, of Sir John Skelton (a former governor of the Citadel), and of Charles Mathews the comedian, as well as portions of the bodies of Frobisher and Drake. Here Katherine of Aragon returned thanks for a safe voyage from Spain to Plymouth. In 1640 a second parish was formed with Charles
- ↑ The Samoan Islanders unite the two conceptions: the entrance to their spirit-land is at the westernmost point of the westernmost island, where the ghosts descend by two holes into the under-world. Long ago the inhabitants of the French coast of the English Channel believed that the souls of the dead were ferried across to Britain, and there are still traces of this belief in the folk-lore of Brittany (Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii. 64; Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, ix. 694). In classical mythology the underground Hades prevailed over the western. It was an Etruscan custom at the foundation of a city to dig a deep hole in the earth and close it with a stone; on three days in the year this stone was removed and the hosts were then supposed to ascend from the lower world. In Asia Minor caves filled with mephitic vapours or containing hot springs were known as Plutonia or Charonia. The most famous entrances to the under-world were at Taenarum in Laconia, Heraclea on the Euxine, and at the Lake Avernus in Italy.
