Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/755

P E T P E T 723 swindlers together. In estimating such a work, which in its spirit not less than in its form and its literary execution is essentially abnormal, it is necessary to bear in mind that it has reached us in so fragmentary and mutilated a shape that we may altogether have missed the key to it, and that it may have been intended by its author to be a sustained satire, written in a vein of reserved and powerful irony, of the type realized in our modern Jonathan Wild or Barry Lindon. But, if this is not the explanation, we must fall back on the more obvious but still difficult solution that, in the entire divorce of intellectual power and insight from any element of right human feeling, the work is an exceptional phenomenon in literature. From an ethical and human point of view it is valuable only as a gauge of the degradation in which much of Roman society was sunk in the age when Persius wrote his satires a work more pervaded by a spirit of moral purity than any other in Latin litera ture and Christianity made its first converts in Rome. But, as a work of original power, of humorous representation, of literary invention and art, the fragment deserves all the admira tion which it has received. We recognize the "arbiter elegantise " in the admirable sense of the remarks scattered through it on education, on art, on poetry, and on eloquence. Though a better critic than a poet, yet he can Avrite verse not only with good taste and simplicity, rare among the poets of that age, but with a true feeling of nature, as, for instance, in his description of a grove of plane-trees, cypresses, and pines " Has inter ludebat aquis errantilms amnis Spumeus et querulo vexabat rore lapillos." And in some of his shorter pieces he anticipates the terseness and elegance of Martial. The long fragment on the Civil War does not seem to be written so much with the view of parodying as of enter ing into rivalry with the poem of Lucan, but he has caught the tone and style of the author whom he censures. In the epigram extemporized by Trimalchio late on in the banquet, " Quod non expectes, ex transverse tit Et supra nos Fortuna negotia curat, Quare da nobis vina Falerna, puer," we have probably a more deliberate parody of the style of verses produced by the illiterate aspirants to be in the fashion of the day. We might conjecture that the chief gift to which Petronius owed his social and his literary success was that of humorous mimicry, in which the most intellectual and at the same time sensual among the Romans as, for instance, Sulla took a great delight. The man who could describe the dinner of Trimalchio and mimic the talk and peculiarities of the various guests with such humorous zest was just the man to keep the table in a roar during the pro longed revels in the palace of Nero. If the old " vexata qusestio " of the distinction between wit and humour were to be revived, the critic who could determine by analysis what is the essence of the talent of Martial on the one hand and of Petronius on the other would go very near to solving it. He would have, however, to abandon the theory that humour is more essentially humane and sympathetic than wit. Petronius is perhaps the most strictly humorous among Latin writers, and humour is in him combined with the rarer gift of conceiving and representing character. In Trimalchio and his various guests, in the old poet, in Ae culti vated, depraved, and moody Encolpius, in the Chrysis, Quartilla, Polyaenis, &c., we recognize in living examples the play of those various appetites, passions, and tendencies which satirists deal with as abstract qualities. Another gift he possesses in a high degree, which must have availed him in society as well as in literature, the gift of story-telling ; and some of the stories which first appear in the Satirae e.g., that of the Matron of Ephesus have enjoyed a great reputation in later times. His style, too, is that of one who must have been an excellent talker, who could talk sense when sense was wanted, who could have discussed questions of taste and literature with the most cultivated men of any time as well as amused the most dissolute society of any time in their most reckless revels. One phrase of his is often quoted by many who have never come upon it in its original context, Horatii curiosa felicitas. " Perhaps next after a day spent in the ruins of Pompeii nothing else makes us feel so near the actual daily life of the Roman world in all its petty details in the 1st century A.D. as this fragment of Petronius. Another obvious observation that is suggested by it is that of the superiority of the novel over any other form of literature for the purpose of literally reproducing the commonplace experience of actual life in every age. Opinions may differ as to the value or interest of the literal reproduction of the customs and manners of such an age as that of Nero. Compared with the amount of attention which was given to Petronius both by scholars and men of letters in the 17th and 18th centuries, comparatively little has been done for him in recent times. The only good critical edition of the fragments is that of Biichler. An interesting chapter is devoted to him in M. Gaston Boissier s V Opposition sous Vempire. For those who wish to read him in a modern translation, the French version by M. II. De Guerle is the one to be recommended. (W. Y. S.) PETROPAVLOVSK, a district town of western Siberia, in the government of Akmolinsk, is situated on the right bank of the Ishim river, 185 miles to the west of Omsk. The old fort occupies a hill about 100 feet high, which slopes abruptly to the Ishim, while the wooden houses and the broad, unpaved, but regular streets of the town occupy partly the declivities of the hill and partly the (sometimes inundated) banks of the river. The fertile steppes to the east, west, and south of the town largely supply it with corn and cattle, and at the same time give great facilities for trade with the Kirghiz, with Turkestan, and with Bokhara. Its exports passing through the custom-house are estimated at an annual value of about 200,000, the chief items being cottons (upwards of 100,000), woollen stuffs, corn, metals, metallic wares, and spirits. The value of the cattle imports exceeds 150,000 annually, and the aggregate value of the skins, cotton goods, furs, tea, and wool imported reaches the same figure. The town has several tallow-melting houses, tanneries, and glue and soap works ; and its industries are steadily increasing. The population (7850 in 1865) now exceeds 11,500. The small fort of Petropavlovsk, consisting of an earthen palisaded wall, was founded in 1752, and was the military centre of the Ishim line of fortifications. It became at once a place of trade with the Kirghiz, and in 1771 had a population of 914 inhabitants. It received municipal institutions in 1807. PETROPAVLOVSK is also the name of a Russian seaport in Kam chatka, on the eastern shore of the Bay of Avatcha in 53 N. lat. and 158 44 E. long. Its beautiful harbour, one of the best on the Pacific, is but little frequented, and the town consists merely of a few huts with some 500 inhabitants. Its naval institutions were transferred to Nikolaievsk after the attack of the allies in 1854. PETROPOLIS, a town of Brazil, in the province of Rio de Janeiro, lies at a height of 2400 feet above the sea on a beautiful and healthy plateau, surrounded by the wooded heights of the Serra da Estrella, which lie between it and the coast region. It is about 25 miles almost due north from Rio de Janeiro, and is reached by a railway (22 miles) from Maua ; the last 10 miles are on the Rigi system. Founded by the emperor of Brazil as a colony for dis tressed German immigrants, Petropolis has grown into an elegant and thriving town of 8000 or 10,000 inhabitants, and, besides the royal palace and park, has a number of good hotels and public buildings. PETROVSK, a town of European Russia, in the pro vince of SaratofF, lies on both banks of the Medvyeditza, a tributary of the Don, 64 miles north-north-west of Saratoff on the Volga by the highway to Moscow. It was founded by Peter I. in 1698 to defend the district from the en croachments of the Kuban Tatars, and by the beginning of the 19th century it had become a place of 6921 inhabit ants, with ten churches and a monastery (St Nicholas). In 1864 the population was 10,128, and it has since increased to upwards of 15,000. This Petrovsk must not be confounded with (1) Petrovsk, a sea port town of from 4000 to 5000 inhabitants in northern Daghestan, which possesses one of the best roadsteads on the west coast of the Caspian ; nor (2) with the crown iron-works of this name in Trans baikalia, deserving mention for its convict establishment, where the "Decembrists" were kept for several years. PETROZAVODSK, a town of Russia, capital of the government of Olonetz, lies on the Avestern shore of Lake Onega, 300 miles to the north-east of St Petersburg. The small river Lososinka divides it into two parts, the town proper and the iron -works. Two cathedrals built towards the end of last century, two lyceums for boys and girls, a mining school, an ecclesiastical seminary, and several primary schools are the chief public buildings and institu tions. The Government cannon-foundry can turn out annu ally more than 5000 tons of pig-iron, and the same weight of guns, gun-carriages, and ammunition, but its actual pro duction is subject to great fluctuations. Within the district there are a few private iron- works as well as important saw mills. The inhabitants engage in agriculture and fishing, and there is some trade with St Petersburg, timber, fish, and furs being exported in exchange for corn, groceries,