treaty with Escoiquitz. In 1809, he received the archbishopric of Malines; in 1811, he was employed in the negotiations with the pope at Savona, and, in 1812, the important embassy to Warsaw was intrusted to him. From this place he was driven by the approach of the enemy, after the disastrous campaign in Russia. Pradt has given a history of this embassy, and of Napoleon's return, in his Histoire de l'Ambassade dans le Grand-duché de Varsovie (1815), which passed through eight editions, and was translated into several languages; but its satirical tone is not suitable for history. He fell into disgrace, lost his place as almoner, and was obliged to retire to his diocese; but in 1814, he returned again to Paris, for the purpose of taking part in the restoration, and the negotiations connected with it. The provisional government assigned him the important post of chancellor to the legion of honor. He soon after, however, retired to his estate in Auvergne, and remained there during the hundred days. After the second restoration, Macdonald received the post of chancellor to the legion of honor. From that time, De Pradt has not held any office. He gave up his claims to the archbishopric of Malines for a pension of 10,000 francs from the king of the Netherlands. Since 1815, he has written Du Congrès de Vienne; Récit historique sur la Restauration de la Royauté en France; Des Colonies et de la Révolution actuelle de l'Amérique; Les quatre Concordats; L'Europe après le Congrès d'Aix-la-Chapelle; Le Congrès de Carlsbad (2 vols.); De la Révolution de l'Espagne et de ses Suites (1820); Petit Catéchisme à l'Usage des Français sur les Affaires de leur Pays (1820); De Affaire de la Loi des Elections (1820). He was prosecuted as a seditious writer, on account of this last publication. This trial excited a great sensation in Paris, both on account of the circumstances of the case, and of the brilliant eloquence displayed by him, and his advocate, Dupin, in consequence of which he was acquitted. See the Procès complet de M. de Pradt pour son Ouvrage sur l'Affaire de la Loi des Élections (1820). In 1821, he was again obliged to appear before the tribunal of the police correctionnelle, at Paris, on account of an article in the Constitutionnel of October 14th, relative to the congress at Verona, entitled Mon Congrès. He was defended by an advocate, and was acquitted. This article was directed against M. de Bonald, and advanced the opinion, that if France

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had declared herself for the constitutions of Spain, Portugal, and Naples, she would have had a population of fifty millions for her allies, and might thus have regained the influence which she had lost in Europe by the final overthrow of Napoleon. Pradt's work De la Grèce dans ses Rapports avec l'Europe (Paris, 1822), which contained much truth, though little that was new, excited a good deal of attention. In this work he maintained that a new Greek kingdom would present an additional check to the great powers, that Europe could not trust the delivery of Greece to Russia, &c. Soon after appeared his Examen d'un Plan présenté aux Cortès pour la Reconnaissance de l'Independence de l'Amérique Espagnole (Paris, 1822). About the same time this indefatigable author wrote the Parallèles de la Puissance Anglaise et Russe relativement à l'Europe, suivis d'un Aperçu sur la Grèce (1823), in which he advanced the opinion that there were only two states (England and Russia) in Europe that were really in full possession of their independence, and in a condition to adopt an active policy in their conduct towards other states, which had nothing left, but the alternative of joining one or the other of these two powers, and that France, in particular, must follow the British system. In 1824, De Pradt published L'Europe et l'Amérique en 1822 et 1823 (2 vols.), the third of his works on this subject, in which he gives a historical view of the principles of government in the old and new worlds, erroneously considering European politics as composed of the struggle between absolute and constitutional monarchy. In his work De la France, de l'Emigration et des Colons (Paris, 1825), he declares himself against granting an indemnity to the émigrés, although he had himself been one of the number. His later writings are, L'Europe par Rapport à la Grèce et à la Reformation de la Turquie (Paris, 1826); and Garantis à demander à l'Espagne (Paris, 1827); in which he maintains the necessity of abolishing the monastic orders. Verboseness and repetition are the faults of his style, and his views are too partial and shallow. His motto is, Le genre humain est en marche, et rien ne le fera rétrograder.

PRETOR, PRETORIANS. (See Pretor, Pretorians.)

PRAGA; a fortified town of the kingdom of Poland (waywodeship of Masovia), on the right bank of the Vistula, opposite Warsaw, of which it may be considered as a suburb. It is connected with War

saw by a bridge of boats, and contains 3000 inhabitants. After the battle of Macziewice, in which Kosciusco (q. v.) was made prisoner (October 10, 1794), Suwaroff advanced against Praga, the last bulwark of Poland, into which 20,000 men had thrown themselves. Zajonczek received the command of the garrison, 30,000 strong, which occupied a fortified camp before Praga. November 4, Suwaroff stormed Praga, which was taken, after a most bloody fight: 13,000 Poles covered the field of battle; more than 2000 perished in the Vistula, and 14,680 were made prisoners. Besides this loss, a great number of peasants, women, old men, children and infants, perished in the conflict and during the pillage. The Russian loss was trifling. Suwaroff (q. v.) wrote to the empress from the field of battle, "Hurrah! Praga! Suwaroff;" and was answered as laconically, "Bravo! General field-marshal." He entered Warsaw on the 9th; and the last partition of Poland (1795) was the consequence of the fall of Praga. (See Warsaw.)

PRAGMATIC SANCTION. (See Sanction, Pragmatic.)

PRAGUE (in German, Prag); capital of Bohemia, on the Moldau; archiepiscopal see; lat. 50° 5' N.; lon. 14° 24′ E.; fiftyfour leagues north-west of Vienna; population (including the garrison, 12,354 strong) 117,059, of whom 7400 are Jews, and the remainder principally Bohemians (see Bohemia) and Germans. Prague contains forty-six Catholic and two Protestant churches, eleven male and four female monasteries, nine synagogues, and six hospitals. It is surrounded by a wall and moat, and divided by the Moldau into two unequal parts, which are united by a handsome stone bridge of sixteen arches, 1900 feet in length. It consists of four divisions: the old city, comprising the Jews' quarter, and the new city, on the right bank of the river, and Hradschin and Little Prague (Kleinseite) on the left bank. To the south of Prague lies Wischehrad, an old citadel, well fortified, and containing an arsenal. Although Prague is well fortified, the works are too extensive, besides being commanded by the neighboring heights, to sustain a long defence. The streets are, in general,straight, regularly laid out, well paved, and provided with footpaths. The new city contains the handsomest streets; the houses are mostly built of stone, in a neat style, and several of them deserve the name of palaces. Among them is the palace of the famous Wallenstein (q. v.), which is one of the

principal ornaments of the city. There are a number of handsome squares, and many elegant public buildings, among which are the town-house and the fine Gothic cathedral, containing the tomb of several Bohemian kings, and of St. John Nepomuk. (q. v.) The university, situated in the old city, is the oldest in Germany; it was founded, in 1348, by the emperor Charles IV, and until 1409 was in a most flourishing condition; but, in that year, the interference of the government in religious matters caused the secession of several thousand foreigners, and the consequent establishment of new universities at Leipsic, Ingoldstadt, Rostock and Cracow. The number of professors in the university of Prague is forty-four; of students, 1500; the library consists of 100,000 volumes. and 4000 manuscripts in the ancient and in Sclavonic literature. There are several other literary and scientific institutions, as three gymnasia, an academy of science, &c. The manufactures of Prague are not very important; they are linen, cotton, silk, hats, &c.; and government has here a great manufactory of arms, and tobacco works. It is the centre of the Bohemian commerce, and of a considerable transit trade. Of the thirty great commercial houses, nearly half are Jewish. The general appearance of the city is poor; the lower classes are in a miserable condition. Prague is the birthplace of Jerome (q. v.), the disciple of Huss. (q. v.) In the fifteenth century, it was troubled by the persecutions of the Hussites. In 1620, the elector palatine, who had been elected king of Bohemia by the nation, was defeated by the emperor in the battle on the White mountain (Weisser Berg), two miles from the city (see Bohemia); and, in 1757, the city was bombarded by Frederic II (the Great) of Prussia.

PRAIRIAL. (See Calendar, vol. ii, page 403.)

PRAIRIE (a French word, signifying a meadow); used in the U. States to designate the remarkable natural meadows, or plains, which are found in the Mississippi Valley. Flint (Geography of the Western States) classes the prairies under three heads:-1. the heathy, or bushy, which have springs, and are covered with small shrubs, bushes, grape-vines, &c., very common in Indiana, Illinois and Missouri. 2. The dry, or rolling, generally destitute of water, and almost all vegetation but grass. These are the most common and extensive; the traveller may wander for days in these vast and nearly level

plains, without wood or water, and see no object rising above the plane of the horizon. In this kind of prairies roam immense herds of bisons. 3. The alluvial or wet prairies form the third and smallest division; they are covered with a rich vegetation, and have a black, deep and friable soil, of inexhaustible fertility. They are well adapted for wheat and maize, in the proper climates. In a state of nature, they are covered with tall, rank grass, and, in the rainy season, are frequently overflowed, or contain numerous pools collected in small basins, without outlets, the waters of which therefore pass off solely by evaporation.

PRASE. (See Quartz.) PRATER; the most famous promenade of Vienna. (See Vienna.)

PRAXITELES; one of the greatest sculptors of Greece. (See Sculpture.) He carried the art to such perfection that a Greek epigram on his Niobe says, "The gods changed me to stone, but Praxiteles restored me to life." Praxiteles and his contemporary Scopas united grandeur with grace; and with them (about 364 B. C.) begins the period of the beautiful style in statuary. The former also worked in bronze, but, according to Pliny, he was most successful in marble. Pliny (Hist. Nat., lib. 36, c. 4, 5) gives a list of his principal works, which were statues of the gods. The finest is said to have been the Cnidian Venus, whom he was the first to represent naked. According to tradition, the celebrated courtesans Cratina and Phryne (q. v.) served as models for it. This Venus is represented with a smiling countenance, and in the attitude of having left the bath, or risen from the sea. This statue was frequently copied. His Coan Venus was nude down to the hips. In Böttiger's opinion, the Venus de' Medici resembles the Cnidian Venus only in the position of the left hand; but the Capitoline Venus is considered as a copy of it. (See Venus.) The group of Niobe now in existence, which is also attributed to Scopas, seems to have been the production of different times. His two statues of Cupid were also celebrated. One of them, which was placed in the temple of Cupid, at Thespia, and a statue of a satyr, which was called periboetos (the farfamed), were considered by Praxiteles, according to Pausanias, as his finest works. An excellent copy of the latter, discovered in a villa of the emperor Antoninus, is in the Museo Pio-Clementino. Among his works were also statues of Diana, Ceres, Bacchus, &c., in marble, and in bronze,

which served as models to succeeding artists.

PRAYER, ATTITudes of. The Greeks and Romans, like all other heathen nations, extended their hands when praying, since they prayed to receive. This ancient mode of praying was at first followed by the Christians; but they afterwards changed it, extending the arms in the form of the cross, to represent the crucifixion of the Savior. They were therefore often obliged to have their arms supported for hours, during which their prayers lasted, by their servants. They afterwards crossed their arms, and thus imitated the Oriental expression of submission and humility. It then became the practice to cross the hands, which was finally changed to the present custom of clasping them-an attitude, in ancient times, expressive of the most profound grief and submission. Among many nations (for instance, the modern Greeks), it is customary to turn, in prayer, towards the east, as the region of the holy sepulchre.

PREADAMITES (from the Latin præ, before); those men, or generations, who, according to some, inhabited the earth previously to the Adamitic creation. By some, therefore, it is assumed that Adam was not the first man; and Isaac Peyrer (1655) maintained that the Jews were descended from Adam and Eve, and the Gentiles from the Preadamites. The term preadamitic is also applied to the remains of the primitive world.

PREBEND; a yearly stipend, paid from the funds of an ecclesiastical establishment, as of a cathedral, or collegiate church.— Prebendary is the person who has a prebend. A simple prebend has no more than the revenue which is assigned for its support; but if the prebend has a jurisdiction annexed, the prebendary is styled a dignitary. Prebendaries, as such, have no cure of souls; and therefore a prebend and a parochial benefice are not incompatible promotions.-The prebendal stall is the seat of the prebendary in the church, into which he is inducted by the dean and chapter.

PREBLE, Edward, commodore of the American navy, was born, Aug. 15, 1761, in that part of Falmouth in Casco bay which is now Portland, in Maine. From early childhood, he discovered a strong disposition for perils and adventures, and a firm, resolute and persevering temper. His first voyage was to Europe in a letter of marque, captain Frend. About the year 1779, he became midshipman in the state ship Protector, twenty-six guns, cap

constantly moving from east to west, or from Aries towards Pisces, &c., by means of which the equinoctial points are carried farther and farther back among the preceding signs of stars, at the rate of about 501" each year, which retrograde motion is called the precession, recession, or retrocession of the equinoxes. Hence, as the stars remain immovable, and the equinoxes go backward, the stars will seem to move more and more eastward with respect to them; for which reason the longitudes of all the stars, being reckoned from the first point of Aries, or the vernal equinox, are continually increasing. From this cause it is that the constellations seem all to have changed the places assigned to them by the ancient astronomers. In the time of Hipparchus and the oldest astronomers, the equinoctial points were fixed to the first stars of Aries and Libra; but the signs do not now answer to the same points; and the stars, which were then in conjunction with the sun when he was in the equinox, are now a whole sign, or 30 degrees, to the eastward of it; so the first star of Aries is now in the portion of the ecliptic called Taurus; and the stars of Taurus are now in Gemini, and those of Gemini in Cancer, and so on. Hence, likewise, the stars which rose or set at any particular season of the year in the times of Eudoxus, Hesiod, Virgil, Pliny, &c., by no means answer, at this time, their descriptions. This seeming change of place in the stars was first observed by Hipparchus of Rhodes, who, 128 years B. C., found that the longitudes of the stars in his time were greater than they had been before observed by Timochares, and than they were in the sphere of Eudoxus, who wrote 380 years B. C. Ptolemy also perceived the gradual change in the longitudes of the stars; but he stated the quantity at too little, making it but 1° in 100 years, which is at the rate of only 36" per year. Y-hang, a Chinese, in the year 721, stated the quantity of this change at 1° in 83 years, which is at the rate of 434" per year. Other more modern astronomers have made this precession still more, but with some small differences from each other; and it is now usually taken at 501" per year. All these rates are deduced from a comparison of the longitude of certain stars, as observed by more ancient astronomers, with the later observations of the same stars, namely, by subtracting the former from the latter, and dividing the remainder by the number of years in the interval between the dates of the observations: thus, by a medium of a

great number of comparisons, the quantity of the annual change has been fixed at 501", according to which rate it will require 25,791 years for the equinoxes to make their revolutions westward quite around the circle, and return to the same point again. The explanation of the physical cause of this slow change in the position of the equinoxes, or the intersections of the equinoctial with the ecliptic, is one of the most difficult problems of physical astronomy, which even Newton attempted in vain to solve in a perfectly satisfactory manner. Later mathematicians, however, as D'Alembert, Euler, Simpson, Laplace, have succeeded in it. Our limits will only allow us to say, in general, that this phenomenon is owing to the spheroidal figure of the earth, which itself arises from the earth's rotation on its axis; for, as more matter has thus been accumulated all round the equatorial parts than any where else on the earth, the sun and moon, when on either side of the equator, by attracting this redundant matter, bring the equator sooner under them, in every return towards it, than if there was no such accumulation. This subject is treated clearly and fully in the 22d book of Lalande's Astronomy (3d ed., Paris, 1792); see, also, D'Alembert's Récherches sur la Précession des Équinoxes (Paris, 1749, 4to.); and Ferguson's Astronomy (Brewster's edition, Edinburgh, 1821). PRECIOUS STONES. (See Gems.) PRECIPITATION. (See Cohesion.) PREDESTINATION. (See Grace, and

Calvin.)

PREFECTURES. Among the problems of the modern policy of Europe, there is, perhaps, none more important than the combination which should take place in the administration of the affairs of towns and districts, between the general government and the local authorities. In the countries of Germany, the care of certain public matters, which formerly belonged to the communities in their general assemblies, under the superintendence of their bailiffs, counts and princes, was, at an early period, transferred to the sovereign and to the stewards of the princes; and only here and there have any traces been preserved of an older constitution, which certainly once existed in all the Germanic kingdoms, but has nowhere remained to a considerable extent except in England. For all that relates to the preservation of public order and peace, the care of roads, and other public institutions, schools, poor rates, prisons, &c., the parliament is there the supreme authority,