of his finest anthems, “I was glad” and “My heart is inditing,” for the coronation of James II. In 1687 he resumed his connexion with the theatre by furnishing the music for Dryden’s tragedy, Tyrannic Love. In this year also Purcell composed a march and quick-step, which became so popular that Lord Wharton adapted the latter to the fatal verses of Lillibulero; and in or before January 1688 he composed his anthem “Blessed are they that fear the Lord,” by express command of the king. A few months later he wrote the music for D’Urfey’s play, The Fool’s Preferment. In 1690 he wrote the songs for Dryden’s version of Shakespeare’s Tempest, including “Full fathom five” and “Come unto these Yellow Sands,” and the music for Betterton’s adaptation of Fletcher and Massinger’s Prophetess (afterwards called Dioclesian) and Dryden’s Amphitryon; and in 1691 he produced his dramatic masterpiece, King Arthur, also written by Dryden, and first published by the Musical Antiquarian Society in 1843. In 1692 he composed songs and music for The Fairy Queen (an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream), the score of which (discovered in 1901) was edited in 1903 for the Purcell Society by J. S. Shedlock.
But Purcell’s greatest work is undoubtedly his Te Deum and Jubilate, written for St Cecilia’s Day, 1694, the first English Te Deum ever composed with orchestral accompaniments. In this he pressed forward so far in advance of the age that the work was annually performed at St Paul’s Cathedral till 1712, after which it was performed alternately with Handel’s Utrecht Te Deum and lubliate until 1743, when it finally gave place to Handel’s Dettingen Te Deum. Purcell did not long survive the production of this great work. He composed an anthem for Queen Mary’s funeral, and two elegies. He died at his house in Dean’s Yard, Westminster, on the 21st of November 1695, and was buried under the organ in Westminster Abbey. He left a widow and three children, three having predeceased him. His widow died in 1706. She published a number of his works, including the now famous collection called Orpheus Britannicus (two books, 1698, 1702).
Besides the operas already mentioned, Purcell wrote Don Quixote, Bonduca, The Indian Queen and others, a vast quantity of sacred music, and numerous odes, cantatas and other miscellaneous pieces. (See the list in Grove’s Dictionary of Music.) A Purcell Club was founded in London in 1836 for promoting the performance of his music, but was dissolved in 1863. In 1876 a Purcell Society was founded, which has done excellent work in publishing new editions of his works.
PURCHAS, SAMUEL (1575?–1626), English compiler of works on travel and discovery, was born at Thaxted, Essex, and graduated at St John’s College, Cambridge, in 1600; later he became B.D., with which degree he was admitted at Oxford in 1615. In 1604 he was presented by James I. to the vicarage of Eastwood, Essex, and in 1614 became chaplain to Archbishop Abbot and rector of St Martin’s, Ludgate, London. He had previously spent much time in London on his geographical work. In 1613 he published Purchas, his Pilgrimage; or, Relations of the World and the Religions observed in all Ages (4th ed. much enlarged, 1626); in 1619 Purchas, his Pilgrim. Microcosmus, or the histories of Man. Relating the wonders of his Generation, vanities in his Degeneration, Necessity of his Regeneration; and in 1625 Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas his Pilgrimes, containing a History of the World in Sea Voyages and Lande Travells, by Englishmen and others (4 vols.). This continuation of Hakluyt’s Principal Navigations was partly based on MSS. left by Hakluyt. The fourth edition of the Pilgrimage is usually catalogued as vol. v. of the Pilgrimes, but the two works are essentially distinct. Purchas died in September or October 1626, according to some in a debtors’ prison. None of his works was reprinted till the Glasgow reissue of the Pilgrimes in 1905–1907. As an editor and compiler Purchas was often injudicious, careless and even unfaithful; but his collections contain much of value, and are frequently the only sources of information upon important questions affecting the history of exploration.
PURCHASE, in its common sense, that which is acquired by the payment of money or its equivalent. The original
meaning of the word (O. Fr. pourchacier, pourchasser, &c., popular,
Lat. pro-captiare) was to pursue eagerly, hence to acquire.
Thus “purchase” was early used by the lawyers (e.g. Britton,
in 1292) for the acquirement of property by other means than
inheritance or mere act of law, including acquirement by
escheat, prescription, occupancy, alienation and forfeiture;
more generally, purchase in law means acquisition of land by
bargain or sale, according to the law of “vendor and purchaser”
(see Conveyancing). A later development of meaning is found
in the use of the word for a mechanical contrivance by which
power can be excited or applied, a hold or fulcrum. This first
appears (16th century) in the nautical use of the verb, to haul
up a rope or cable by some mechanical device, the root idea being
apparently to “gain” advantage over the rope bit by bit.
PURDAH (Pers. parda), the curtain which screens women
from the sight of men in Eastern countries; a purdah-nashin is
a woman who sits behind the curtain. The term has passed
into common Anglo-Indian usage, and to “lift the purdah”
means to reveal a secret.
PURGATORY (Late Lat. purgatorium, from purgare, to purge), according to Roman Catholic faith, a state of suffering after death in which the souls of those who die in venial sin, and of those who still owe some debt of temporal punishment for mortal sin, are rendered fit to enter heaven. It is believed that such souls continue to be members of the Church of Christ; that they are helped by the suffrage’s of the living—that is, by prayers,
alms and other good works, and more especially by the sacrifice of the Mass; and that, although delayed until “the last farthing is paid,” their salvation is assured. Catholics support this doctrine chiefly by reference to the Jewish belief in the
efficacy of prayer for the dead (2 Macc. xii. 42 seq.), the tradition
of the early Christians, and the authority of the Church.
Irenaeus regards as heretical the opinion that the souls of the departed pass immediately into glory; Tertullian, Cyprian, the Acts of St Perpetua, Clement of Alexandria, Cyril of Jerusalem, Basil, Gregory of Nyassa, Ambrose, Chrysostom and Jerome, all speak of prayer for the dead and seem to imply belief in a purgatory, but their view seems to have been affected by the pre-Christian doctrine of Hades or Sheol. Some of the Greeks, notably Origen, teach that even the perfect must go through fire in the next world. Augustine writes (De VIII. Dulcitii quaestionibus) that “it is not incredible” that imperfect souls will be “saved by some purgatorial fire,” to which they will be subjected for varying lengths of time according to their needs; but in other passages he expresses conflicting opinions (De civitate, xx. 25, xxi. 13, 26; Enchiridion, 69). Gregory the Great was the first to formulate the doctrine in express terms, “de quibusdam levibus culpis esse ante judicium purgatorius ignis credendus est” (Dial. iv. 39). Thenceforth it became part of the theology of the Western Church, and was definitely affirmed at the councils of Lyons (1274), Florence (1439) and Trent. Concerning the word purgatory, Innocent IV. writes: “Forasmuch as (the Greeks) say that this place of purification is not indicated by their doctors by an appropriate an accurate word, we will, in accordance with the tradition and authority of the holy fathers, that henceforth it be called purgatorium, for in this temporary fire are cleansed not deadly capital sins, which must be remitted by penance, but those lesser venial sins which, if not removed in life, afflict men after death.”
Many points about purgatory, on which the Church has no definition, have been subjects of much speculation among Catholics. Purgatory, for example, is usually thought of as having some position in space, and as being distinct from heaven and hell; but any theory as to its exact latitude and longitude, such as underlies Dante’s description, must be regarded as imaginative. Most theologians since Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventura have taught that the souls in purgatory are tormented by material fire, but the Greeks have never accepted this opinion. It must be inferred from the whole practice of indulgences as at present authorized that the pains of purgatory are measurable by years and days; but here also everything is indefinite. The Council of Trent, while it commands all bishops to teach “the sound doctrine of purgatory handed down by the venerable fathers and sacred councils,” bids them exclude from popular addresses all the “more difficult and subtle questions relating to the subject which do not tend to edification.”
The Eastern Church affirms belief in an intermediate state after death, but the belief is otherwise as vague as the expressions
