—blameless, beautiful, and brave—he was, by an order in council stript, 14th March, 1692, of his title to the Pennsylvanian government—a tyrannical act involving his utter ruin; for, besides that he had risked his whole substance in the Pennsylvanian experiment, his estates both in England and in Ireland had been grievously mismanaged by incompetent or dishonest overseers. Blow followed on blow, gloom on gloom. Worn out by anxiety, Penn's beloved wife died. His eldest son, Springett Penn, a sweet and gifted youth, was threatened with consumption. An order in council capriciously restored to Penn, in 1694, that Pennsylvanian government of which an order in council had so capriciously robbed him. But the ownership of territories so extensive was almost barren to him. His agents were faithless, and the colonists, though profuse in expressions of regard, were in reality ungrateful and grasping. The world of Penn was desolate, his home more desolate still, and detraction poisoned the wounds which adversity had made. While the world ceased not to frown, the charm and the warmth of the home revived when in January, 1696, Penn took as his second wife Hannah, daughter of Thomas Callowhill of Bristol, who compensated for the soft angelic radiance which had clothed the first wife, by indomitable strength and resolution. Springett Penn, ere reaching his twenty-first year, was in April, 1696, torn away, plunging the father in despair. A visit to his Irish estates preluded Penn's second expedition to the New World. His family went with him to America, though rather from necessity than choice. Penn's residence in the colony was more beneficial to the colonists than to himself. He suggested, he promoted, many reforms; above all he inculcated and gave the example of that humane spirit in which he was so far before his age. He branded as iniquitous negro slavery, and to the aged, the sick, and the destitute he was a bountiful almoner. It was the sad doom of Penn that England and Pennsylvania seemed always to be rending him asunder. But for Pennsylvania, he could have played a far grander part in England: and but for England, he could have given to the Pennsylvanian experiment a far more sustained and systematic shape. At all events Penn's public and private duties appeared again to require his presence in England. He had not been more than three months in England when William III. died. Queen Anne was Penn's friend, as her father had been; and much during the remainder of his days did Penn need friends. Penn's steward, Philip Ford, whom Penn regarded as a paragon of virtue, but who was a miracle of villany, died in 1702. By the accounts which he left it was made to appear that Penn was largely in his debt. Ford's widow and son—deaf to mercy, deaf to justice, dead to decency—thrust Penn among the debtors in the Old Bailey. It was afterwards proved that it was only a small sum that Penn really owed. The founder of Pennsylvania was at last released; but his health was shattered by confinement in the close, bad air. In 1712 Penn had the first of a series of paralytic attacks, which clouded his mind and weakened his memory, almost more than they prostrated his body. It was at Ruscombe in Berkshire that Penn's closing years were spent. His children and grandchildren clustered lovingly round that broken frame, in which the great, warm, tender heart burned strong and true in the general wreck. Penn died on the 29th July, 1718; and he was buried on the 5th August at the village of Jordans, Buckinghamshire, beside his first wife and his son Springett. There were two sons and three daughters by the one marriage; four sons and two daughters by the other. Penn's son William was a profligate, who sank from one depth of degradation to another till death put an end to his shameful career in 1720. Though Penn left his family in straitened circumstances, yet the property in Pennsylvania increased rapidly in value. Recent attacks on Penn have been victoriously refuted. Indeed, they refute themselves, or are scarcely deserving of refutation. Free from frailty no man is: free from vanity perhaps Penn was not. But his integrity is unimpeachable. He was a saint, a hero, a martyr, all in one. Penn's life, however, has yet to be written, at once with historical dignity and historical accuracy. Let us not wrangle over the grave of a man so memorable—let us bring ourselves into harmony with his aspirations and inspirations. If Penn's fame is not pure, then the fame of no English worthy is unsullied, and through the crowding centuries the mighty dead have no divine message to breathe to us. Penn cried, "No Cross, no Crown." He bore the cross, and let us not snatch from him the crown which the unanimous veneration of mankind has bestowed.—W. M—l.
PENNANT, Thomas, an eminent naturalist, was born at Downing, in the parish of Whiteford, near Holywell in Flintshire, on June 14, 1726, his father being David Pennant—descendant of an eminent Welsh family. He was educated as a boy at Wrexham school, and afterwards at Oxford university, with a view to his studying for the legal profession. He first developed his taste for natural history at the early age of twelve, from reading Willoughby's Ornithology. No sooner did he leave Oxford, where he seemed so little in his element that he took no degree, than, influenced by the passion that was mastering him, he made a tour into Cornwall, and there encouraged by Dr. Borasse, became deeply interested in the study of minerals and fossils. An account, published in the Philosophical Transactions, of the shock of an earthquake which was felt at Downing in 1750, was his first literary production. In 1754 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Antiquaries, and in the same year visited Ireland, but complained that the conviviality of those whose guest he was rendered his journal unfit for publication. He commenced a correspondence with Linnæus in 1755, which lasted as long as the strength and years of that most distinguished naturalist permitted. Through his influence Pennant's description of a concha anomia was read before the Royal Society of Upsal, which consequently elected him one of its members. The first part of his work on "The British Zoology" was published in 1765, and by it his reputation as a naturalist was established. Whilst this volume was in the press, he travelled about Europe, becoming thus more or less intimate with such men as Buffon, Voltaire, Pallas, Haller, and the two Gesners. Soon after his return he was chosen a fellow of the Royal Society. In 1768 he published a second edition of his "British Zoology," the profits of which he generously gave to a Welsh charity school in London. The next year he added to this work a volume on the reptiles and fishes of our island, and the year after a supplementary one completed it. In 1771 he published a "Synopsis of Quadrupeds," the plan of which he had designed with Pallas at the Hague, and concerning the improved and enlarged edition of which, called a "History of Quadrupeds," Cuvier says—"It is still indispensable to those who wish to study the history of quadrupeds." About the same time he wrote an amusing account of his tour in Scotland, which quickly ran through many editions, and within a few months of that success the university of Oxford paid a high tribute to his literary worth by conferring on him the degree of doctor of laws. The next year, accompanied by Dr. Lightfoot, whom he assisted in his Flora Scotia, he made a second tour into Scotland, and, among general tributes of honour, Edinburgh and other corporate towns presented him with their municipal freedom. He published several accounts of his travels; as, for example, in 1774 a history of his second journey into Scotland, and in that and succeeding years the record of the many tours he made throughout the British dominions in pursuit of topographical discoveries. His "Welsh Tour" was issued in 1778, and his "Journey from Chester to London" in 1782. Dr. Johnson said of his publications in this branch of literature—"Pennant is the best traveller I ever read; he observes more things than any one else does." The last great work which he finished was his "Arctic Zoology," and although it was necessarily a compilation, because he had never visited the haunts of the animals he there describes, it was nevertheless very much esteemed. In the beginning; of 1798 he published two volumes entitled "A View of Hindoostan," the two additional volumes, under the name of "Outlines of the Globe," and which include, with the description of India and its productions, that of the adjoining countries, being edited by his son after his death. He also published, in 1793, "Literary Life;" in 1796, a "History of Whiteford and Holywell;" in 1799 a "History of London;" besides commencing at different periods of his life a work on "Indian Zoology," and another on the "Genera of Birds," neither of which was completed. He died at his seat at Downing, December 16, 1798, in the seventy-second year of his age, having won for himself the fame of a most devoted student of natural history, a keenly observant traveller, and a singularly instructive and indefatigable writer.—D. T.
PENNECUIK, Alexander, M.D., a Scottish physician and miscellaneous writer, was born in 1652, and was descended from a good family, who possessed the estate which bears their name down to the year 1647. Dr. Pennecuik inherited the estates of Newhall and Romanno from his father, who served as an army surgeon under General Bannier in the Swedish army during the
