nation. The best edition is that of Paris, 1731, 4 vols. folio. He wrote also works upon French antiquities, notes on various authors, and a commentary on the Customs of Troyes.—T. J.
PITISCUS, Samuel, a philologist of considerable attainments, was born at Zütphen, Holland, in 1637, and, having gone through a course of linguistic studies at the universities of Deventer and Gröningen, became master of the grammar-school of Zütphen, and afterwards of that of Utrecht. He retired in 1717, and died in 1727. His principal works are a Lexicon Latino-Belgicum, Amsterdam, 1704; and "Lexicon antiquitatum Romanarum," 2 vols., Leuwarden, 1713, second edition, Venice, 1719. Besides these books, which are still in use, he edited a large number of Latin classics, among others Suetonius, Quintus Curtius, and Aurelius Victor.—F. M.
PITOT, Henri, a distinguished French physicist and hydraulic engineer, was born at Aramon on the 31st of May, 1695, and died there on the 27th of December, 1771. Up to the age of twenty years he had received very little education, when a treatise on geometry that accidentally fell into his hands awakened in his mind a previously dormant taste for mathematical and physical science, in the study of which he now made rapid progress. His talents were appreciated by Reaumur, who employed him for some time as an assistant in making physical experiments. In 1724 he was appointed a member of the Academy of Sciences, and in 1740 a fellow of the Royal Society of London. Having attained a high reputation for his knowledge of practical mechanics and of hydraulics, he was appointed in 1740 chief engineer of Languedoc and inspector-general of the royal canal of that province. In those capacities he planned and executed many important works, such as the drainage of the marshes of Languedoc, several bridges, and the aqueduct of Montpellier. He was not less skilful as an architect than as an engineer, and was the author of a long series of scientific papers, chiefly relating to hydraulics. A well-known instrument for measuring the velocity of currents is still called after him, "Pilot's tube."—W. J. M. R.
PITS, PITSENS, or PITSINS, John, the compiler of a well-known volume of memoirs of illustrious Englishmen, published in 1619, was born in 1560 at Alton in Hampshire. He was sent to Winchester school, and thence to New college, Oxford. Before he had completed his second year at the university he went abroad "a voluntary Romish exile," and became a student at Douay, whence he proceeded to Rheims and after spending a year there was sent to the English college at Rome, where he studied philosophy and divinity for nearly seven years, and was ordained a priest. In 1589 he became professor of rhetoric and Greek at Rheims; but at the end of two years he quitted France, then convulsed by the wars of the league, and passed several years in various parts of Germany and Italy. Being appointed confessor to Antonia, daughter of the duke of Lorraine and wife of the duke of Cleves, he found leisure to compile the "Lives of the kings, bishops, apostolic men, and writers of England," which were comprised in four large volumes written in Latin, of which only that concerning the writers has been published under the title of "Relationes Historici de rebus Anglicis," 4to, 1619. The first three volumes were preserved in manuscript in the archives of the Collegiate church of Liverdun on the Moselle, where Pits held a deanery until his death, which took place on the 17th October, 1616. In his account of English writers he has made free use of Bishop Bale's Summary of British Writers, without due acknowledgment, for which he is branded by Anthony Hall with the epithet "plagiarius confidentissimus."—R. H.
PITT, Christopher, an elegant scholar and versifier of the reign of Queen Anne, was born in 1699 at Blandford, Dorset, the son of a physician, and cousin of Governor Pitt, Lord Chatham's ancestor. He was educated at Winchester school, and New college, Oxford, where he became a fellow, and then professor of poetry. In 1724 he retired to the living of Pimperne in Dorsetshire, presented to him by his relative, Mr. Pitt of Strathfieldsaye. In 1727 he published a volume of juvenile poems, none of which rise above mediocrity. His translation of Vida's Art of Poetry was very successful. "It exhibits," says Dr. Johnson, "the skilful adaptation of the numbers to the images expressed." His translation of Virgil's Æneid, which appeared in 1740, was also favourably received, notwithstanding the high position held by Dryden's translation. Johnson in comparing the two says, "Pitt pleases the critics, and Dryden the people; Pitt is quoted, and Dryden read." A second edition of Pitt's Virgil, edited by Joseph Warton, was published in 1754. Mr. Pitt died on 15th April, 1748.—R. H.
PITT, Thomas, commonly called Diamond Pitt, was born in 1653, at St. Mary's, Blandford, in the county of Dorset, being the son of the rector of the parish. He was appointed governor of Madras, where he remained for some years, and on his return home brought with him the celebrated diamond which bears his name, and which at the beginning of the eighteenth century was considered the largest diamond in Europe. It weighed one hundred and twenty-seven carats, and was purchased by Governor Pitt for £20,400. He sold it in 1717 to the Regent Orleans, who, by the advice of Saint-Simon, gave £135,000, for what is still considered the most precious jewel in the crown of France. The expense of cutting the precious stone, and of negotiating the sale was £10,000, leaving the governor a sum of £125,000. With his fortune thus augmented, Mr. Pitt bought estates and rotten boroughs in England, sat in parliament for Old Sarum, and made alliances with the English aristocracy. His daughter married Earl Stanhope.—His son Robert represented Old Sarum and Oakhampton in parliament, and became the father of the illustrious William Pitt, earl of Chatham. Governor Pitt held for about a year the governorship of Jamaica. He died in 1726.—R. H.
PITT, William, one of the most famous of English statesmen, was the second son of William Pitt, earl of Chatham, and Lady Hesther Grenville, and was born on the 28th May, 1759. From his earliest years he displayed a rare and almost unnatural precocity, and not only pursued his studies with singular ardour, but displayed a knowledge of books and of the world which amazed all who came in contact with him. His health, however, caused great anxiety to his parents; and owing to the delicacy of his frame he was not educated, like his father and all his great contemporaries, at a public school, but under the paternal roof. He prosecuted his studies with such extraordinary success, under the careful superintendence of his father, that very few young men have gone to college so thoroughly versant both in the classics, and in mathematics. In 1773 he entered Pembroke hall in the university of Cambridge, where he applied himself vigorously to the studies of the place under the care of his tutor Pretyman, a sound scholar, though a mean, cunning, avaricious man, on whom Pitt afterwards conferred the bishopric of Lincoln, and but for the resistance of George III. would have made him archbishop of Canterbury. At this period of his life Pitt displayed an extraordinary fondness for mathematics, and the acuteness and readiness with which he solved problems was pronounced by high authority to be unrivalled in the university. His proficiency in classical learning was not less remarkable, and the facility with which he mastered the most obscure and difficult writings of the Greek authors, astonished the most accomplished scholars. He had been carefully trained by his father in the art of managing his voice and in the practice of oratory, and his tutors had spared no pains to make him a correct and fluent speaker. In his nineteenth year he had the misfortune to lose his father, whom he attended and supported in his last memorable appearance in the house of lords. As Pitt was now left with only a younger brother's portion of £300 a year, it became necessary for him to follow a profession. He made choice of the law, was called to the bar in 1780, and joined the western circuit, where he acquitted himself in such a manner as to elicit the cordial applause both of the bench and the bar. A few months later a general election took place, and the aspiring youth offered himself as a candidate for the university of Cambridge, but was left at the bottom of the poll. At the request of the duke of Rutland, however, he was brought into parliament by Sir James Lowther, for the close borough of Appleby. It was a time of great anxiety, and the political horizon was dark and lowering. Britain stood alone, and was compelled to carry on single-handed her contest with the united powers of France, Spain, and Holland, while her armies were meeting with a series of humiliating disasters in their vain attempt to reduce the rebellious colonies of North America; her authority in the East was threatened with destruction, and a civil war seemed on the eve of breaking out in Ireland. The government of Lord North was tottering to its fall, and the king himself shared largely in the unpopularity of the minister, whose measures he dictated, and whom his obstinacy and passionate entreaties and reproaches alone induced to remain at a post from which he was anxious to escape. Pitt
