a portionless girl of fifteen, and was content to find an asylum for himself and his wife in the household of his cousin, Sir Edward Montagne, afterwards first earl of Sandwich. Through Montague's influence, he obtained a clerkship in the exchequer, and when the Restoration made his patron and kinsman the earl of Sandwich, keeper of the great wardrobe, and clerk of the privy seal, Pepys was appointed (June, 1660) clerk of the acts of the navy. He was a good man of business, and whatever might be his faults he had the interest of the navy at heart, in a time of shameless profligacy and jobbing in all departments of the state. He secured the esteem of his superiors, among them, the lord high admiral, James, duke of York, afterwards James II. In 1673, on the resignation of the duke of York, after the passing of the test act he was appointed secretary to the navy, but was removed on an accusation of being implicated in the Popish plot, from which he was not cleared until after an imprisonment in the Tower. When Charles II., in 1684, himself undertook the office of lord high admiral, he appointed Pepys to the secretaryship of the admiralty; and the diarist retained the office, discharging its duties with energy and fidelity, to the close of the reign of James II. In 1684 he was elected, and for two years continued to be president of the Royal Society. At the Revolution he lost his official employments, but to the end of his life was consulted, it is said, on all matters connected with the navy. He died in reduced circumstances in 1703 at Clapham, whither he had retired from London a few years before. Pepys published in 1690 "Memoirs relating to the state of the Royal Navy of England," a record of his department for the years 1678-88. He bequeathed his library and collections in reversion to Magdalen college, Cambridge, and a portion of the bequest reached its destination about 1775. The MSS. relating to naval affairs are in the Bodleian, but the collection of English ballads begun by Selden is at Cambridge. From it Percy is said to have derived much of the contents of his Reliques of Ancient Poetry, and it is a mine which literary explorers have not yet exhausted. In Magdalen college, too, lay unread and unknown for some fifty years, the famous diary, in which day by day Pepys had recorded in short-hand himself the sayings and doings of nearly nine years, from the 1st of January, 1660, to the 31st of May, 1669. Its value was discovered by the master of Magdalen, who had it deciphered; and, edited by his brother. Lord Braybrooke, it was published with many excisions in 1825. Several editions of it, the later with such omissions only as were required by the interests of decorum, have since been published. Its worth, historical, social, and personal, has been universally recognized, and the very folly and self-complacency of the diarist give its reality something of the amusing charm which delights in such fictitious characters as Shakspeare's Justice Shallow.—F. E.
PERCEVAL, John, first earl of Egmont, was born in 1683, and was the son of Sir John Perceval, fourth baronet of the family. He was educated at Magdalen college, Oxford. Shortly after the accession of Queen Anne he was elected member for the county of Cork though still under age, and a second time in 1708. In 1715 he was created an Irish peer by the title of Baron Perceval, and was made Viscount in 1722. He represented Harwich in two successive parliaments in the British house of commons, was chosen recorder of that borough in 1728, and four years later, was chosen president of a chartered society for peopling Georgia in America with emigrants from England. He was created Earl of Egmont in 1733, and died in 1748. His works are not important. His son—
PERCEVAL, John, second earl of Egmont, was born in 1711. He represented in successive parliaments Harwich, Westminster, Weobley, and Bridgewater; was one of the lords of the bedchamber to the prince of Wales, and then one of the lords of the privy council; was created, in 1762, Lord Lovel and Holland; and appointed one of the postmasters general, was nominated a lord of the admiralty in 1766, and died in 1770. He was the author of several able political pamphlets.—J. T.
PERCEVAL, Spencer, an English statesman, was the second son of John, earl of Egmont, and was born on the 1st November, 1762. His father, who was first lord of the admiralty under Lord Bute, died before young Perceval reached his eighth year; and after completing his education at Harrow and at Trinity college, Cambridge, he adopted the legal profession, which he studied with close and unwearied attention. At an early period, however, he manifested a taste for politics and an enthusiastic admiration for Mr. Pitt, and during the trial of Warren Hastings published a pamphlet to prove that an impeachment is not terminated by a dissolution of parliament. Through his family influence he was elected for the borough of Northampton, and immediately took his place among the stanch supporters of the government. He even went beyond them in his dislike to reformers and Jacobins, and proposed to make one of Pitt's sedition bills, on the occasion of the mutiny at the Nore in 1797, more stringent than its author had originally made it. He made an able but violent attack upon Fox, took up from the first a position hostile to the claims of the Roman catholics, and exerted himself with great ardour to suppress the Jacobin clubs and to punish their leaders. His zealous services recommended him to the notice of the king and the government, and in 1801 he was appointed solicitor-general by Mr. Addington, and in the following year was promoted to the office of attorney-general. He had to bear almost the whole burden of the debates, in explaining and defending the measures of the government against the united attacks of Fox, Windham, Sheridan, Canning, and ultimately of Pitt also, and discharged this difficult duty in such a manner as greatly to increase his reputation as a courageous, ready, and prompt debater. On the death of Pitt he retired from office along with his colleagues, and offered a strenuous opposition to the Fox and Grenville ministry which succeeded them. He was deeply implicated in the intrigues by which they were ejected from office in 1807, and was rewarded with the post of chancellor of the exchequer, to which was soon after added the lucrative office of chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster. As the leader of the house of commons and first minister of the crown in all but name, the defence of the ministerial policy mainly devolved on him; he zealously abetted the cry of "No popery;" justified the attack on Copenhagen and the seizure of the Danish fleet; and even courageously defended the duke of York against the charges which left a deep stain upon the fair fame of that prince. The ill-planned and worse-managed expedition to Walcheren in 1809, followed as it was by bitter dissensions among the ministers and the resignation of Castlereagh and Canning, led to the virtual dissolution of the cabinet. The duke of Portland resigned and soon after died, and Mr. Perceval succeeded him as first lord of the treasury. But as the mental malady of George III. now returned with increased violence, and the prince of Wales—whom his original connection with Queen Caroline and his conduct in the debates on the regency had deeply offended—was appointed regent, it was generally expected that the new premier's tenure of office would be very short. The prince, however, without scruple or compunction abandoned his former associates, and confirmed Perceval and his colleagues in power. He continued at the head of the government until 1812, following closely the foreign policy of Mr. Pitt, zealously prosecuting the war against France, and supporting to the last the impolitic orders in council which he propounded in 1808, and which in the course of four years had nearly ruined the commerce of Great Britain. On the 11th of May, at the moment this measure was under discussion, he was shot in the lobby of the house of commons by a person named Bellingham, whom misfortunes had driven mad, and to whom he was personally unknown, and immediately expired. Perceval had excellent abilities, acute and quick rather than powerful faculties, much energy of character, dauntless courage, and unwearied industry. He was a skilful, ready, and fluent debater, and a good man of business. His personal character was unimpeachable, and he was most exemplary in the discharge of all his domestic and social duties. But his range of information was limited; he was exceedingly narrowminded and bigoted in his political and ecclesiastical opinions, and throughout his whole career was the strenuous opponent of all tolerant and liberal measures both in church and state. Mr. Perceval left a very numerous family, who were liberally provided for by the legislature.—J. T.
PERCIER, Charles, a celebrated French architect, was born at Paris, August 22, 1764. He was in 1783 placed in the school of the architect Peyre, and afterwards studied under the elder Gisors. In 1786 he won the grand prize of Rome. In that city he made and sent home to Paris restorations of the villa of Pliny, the Trajan column, &c.; but turned from the study of the antique to that of the renaissance. His companion in these studies was Pierre Fontaine (q.v.), and the young men formed not only a close friendship, but also a professional connection, which only terminated with the death of Percier. They returned together to Paris in 1791. Percier died September 5, 1838.—J. T—e.
