vouring to reintroduce Latin into law proceedings, and the like. Yet there is some counter-evidence of his christian conformity. His travels into Russia, Tartary, and adjacent countries, were remarkable in his time; and he was the author of a history from the Gordians to Justin III., and many other books and new editions. He is said to have been modest and self-commanding, though eccentric. The forgery of some ancient inscriptions has, however, always been a charge against his memory, unless indeed his apologists are right in saying that he was himself deceived.—W. M. R.
POMPONIUS MELA. See Mela.
POMPONNE or POMPONE, Simon A., Marquis de, a French statesman and diplomatist, was born in 1618, and educated at the college of Lisieux. In 1662 he shared the disgrace of his friend Fouquet, and was banished to Verdun, not being permitted to return to Paris until 1664. In the following year he was sent as ambassador to Sweden, with the view of detaching that country from the triple alliance that had been formed between it, Holland, and England, against the increasing and threatening power of France. In this mission he was unsuccessful until 1671, when he was appointed by Louis XIV. to succeed M. de Lionne. In 1679 he was supplanted by M. de Croissy; but on the death of Louis in 1691, he was again summoned to exercise the functions of minister of state. He died at Fontainebleau in 1699.—W. J. P.
PONCE, Nicolas, a distinguished French engraver, was born at Paris in 1746. He studied engraving under Fessard and Dulauny. He was employed on the Galerie du Palais Royal, the Musée Laurent, and other important works of a similar character; the illustrations to the Bible by Marillier; Cochin's designs in Dussieux's edition of Ariosto, &c. His principal separate plates are the Battle of Marengo, after C. Vernet; Restoring the Blind Man to Sight, by Le Sueur; and the Marriage of the Virgin, by Van Loo. M. Ponce wrote and translated several works on art. He was a knight of the legion of honour, a member of the Institute, and of several foreign academies. He died in 1831.—J. T—e.
PONCE DE LEON. See Leon.
PONCELET, Jean Victor, a distinguished French engineer and man of science, was born at Metz on the 1st of July, 1788. From 1808 till 1810 he studied at the Polytechnic school; and in 1810 he obtained a commission as sub-lieutenant in the corps of military engineers. He served in the Russian campaign; after the close of which he was appointed superintendent of machinery in the arsenal of Metz. In 1815 he obtained the rank of captain, from which he rose by degrees to that of general of brigade. From 1825 to 1835 he was a professor in the school of application at Metz; and from 1835 till 1848 a member of the committee on the fortification of Paris, and professor of mechanical physics in the Faculty of Science. By developing ideas as to the mechanical principles of the action of machines, which had first been suggested by Carnot and Coriolis, Poncelet inaugurated a new era in the scientific part of practical mechanics. His great work, the "Mecanique Industrielle," was the first in which all questions respecting practical mechanics were reduced to a uniform mathematical system, and it has formed at once a model of system and arrangement, and a mine of information for all subsequent authors on the same subject. Poncelet also contributed largely to the experimental data of applied mechanics, and to the practical improvement of various machines, amongst which may be specified his undershot water-wheel—the first wheel of that class which worked with an efficiency approaching to that of overshot and breast wheels.—R.
POND, John, an eminent astronomer, was born in London about the year 1767. His father was engaged in business, but retired with a competency at an early age, and settled at Dulwich, a small town in the county of Surrey, situated in the immediate vicinity of the metropolis. Young Pond commenced his education at Hadleigh, near Barnet, and subsequently was placed at the free grammar-school of Maidstone. At the age of fourteen he returned home to Dulwich. While residing under the parental roof, he received private lessons in mathematics from Wales the mathematical teacher of Christ's hospital, better known as the astronomer who accompanied Captain Cook in his expedition to the South Seas to observe the transit of Venus across the sun's disc. At the age of sixteen Pond entered Trinity college, Cambridge. During his residence at the university, the science of chemistry, to which he was very much devoted, and which he had studied with enthusiasm at his father's residence, divided his attention with mathematical pursuits. This was an unfortunate circumstance, which he afterwards regretted. It deserves, however, to be mentioned that during his career at the university he united with three of his fellow-students in requesting Mr. Vince, the Plumian professor, to give a course of lectures on practical astronomy. The feeble state of his health induced him on two subsequent occasions to proceed to the continent, where he resided several years. On finally returning to England, he took up his residence at Westbury in Somersetshire. Here he commenced a course of astronomical observations, with an excellent altitude and azimuth circle constructed by the celebrated Troughton. By means of these observations he was enabled to demonstrate beyond all doubt, that the Greenwich quadrant constructed by Bird had sensibly changed its form since the time of its erection. This circumstance eventually led to the substitution of circular instruments for quadrants at Greenwich and all other astronomical observatories. In 1811 Mr. Pond succeeded Maskelyne as astronomer royal. He was now placed in a situation which afforded full scope for his talents as a practical astronomer. In the course of his labours he was led to employ the method of determining the horizontal point, by means of direct and reflected observations of the same star with two mural circles. He also introduced the practice of determining fundamental points of astronomy, not from isolated data, but from masses of observations skilfully grouped together. During his career at Greenwich he entered into a memorable contest with the celebrated astronomer. Dr. Brinkley, relative to the parallax of the fixed stars. Brinkley deduced from his observations the parallaxes of α Lyra and α Aquila, and several other stars. Pond denied the existence of a sensible parallax in any of the objects referred to by the Dublin astronomer. It is now known that he was right in his assertion. In 1827 the Royal Society awarded to him the Copley medal for his various observations and researches. In 1833 he published a catalogue containing a careful determination of the places of eleven hundred and thirteen stars, which proved a most valuable boon to the practical astronomer. He retired from the office of astronomer royal in 1835, and died on the 7th of September in the following year. He was buried at Lee in Kent, in the same grave with Halley.—R. G.
PONIATOWSKI, Joseph, Prince, a Polish general, who stood the test of comparison with Napoleon's most brilliant marshals, was the son of a general officer in the service of the Empress Maria Theresa, and nephew of Stanislas, the last king of Poland. He was born at Warsaw on the 7th of May, 1763, and was educated at the court of his uncle. When sixteen years old he entered the Austrian service as a sub-lieutenant, and at twenty-four he was colonel of dragoons and aid-de-camp to the Emperor Joseph, to whom he had the art of uttering plain truths without giving offence. He offered his services to his countrymen in 1789, and was commander-in-chief of the Polish army in that war which terminated in 1793 in the partition of the kingdom. In 1794 he served under Kosciusko. Refusing to hold rank under the despoilers of his country, his estates were confiscated, but afterwards (1798) restored to him in part, on his consenting to live quietly at his seat, Tablonka on the Vistula. After the battle of Jena in 1806 he was appointed by the king of Prussia military governor of Warsaw, and in that capacity he gave General Murat an official reception when the French armies occupied Poland. Napoleon urged him to raise an army of Poles who should fight under the French flag, on the distinct understanding that the restoration of Polish nationality was to be their primary object. The temptation was great, for no one could doubt Napoleon's power to replace Poland among the nations of Europe. Poniatowski accepted the French proposal, wrote to the king of Prussia to that effect, and became minister of war in the provisional government established at Warsaw. He soon found his new allies more exacting than generous. Napoleon treated Poland as a conquered country, and gave away large estates there to his French generals. The best Polish regiments were doing duty for the French in Spain, and various parts of Germany. War again broke out between Austria and France (1809), and Poniatowski, with an inferior force, met the Austrians marching on Warsaw at Raszin, and kept them at bay for a while. Then acting on the offensive in Galicia, he obliged the Austrians to withdraw from the duchy of Poland. he entered Cracow in triumph, and was there about to be joined by two regiments of Russians as allies of France,
