Il re Teodoro, which affords the first instance of the use of the finale in this class of compositions. On his return to Naples in 1785 he was appointed royal chapelmaster, and for many years remained in that city, writing an occasional opera for London and other cities. In 1799 he was national director of music under the republic, for which he remained several years in disgrace after the return of the royal family. In 1802 he went to Paris, to be chapelmaster to the first consul. In 1804 he was restored to his office of royal chapelmaster at Naples, in which he was retained by Joseph Bonaparte and Murat. Paisiello's works comprise 27 grand and 51 buffo operas, 8 interludes, and a vast collection of cantatas, oratorios, masses, and the ordinary forms of instrumental music. Some of his melodies, as "Hope told a flattering Tale," have had a wide popularity.
PAISLEY, a manufacturing town of Renfrewshire, Scotland, on both banks of the White Cart, about 3 m. above its junction with the Clyde, 8 m. W. by S. of Glasgow; pop. in 1871, 48,257. The navigation of the Cart to Paisley was improved in 1787, and vessels of 180 tons burden can now go up to the town. Its celebrated manufacture of the finest shawls was introduced about the beginning of the 19th century. Silk gauze, muslins, plaids, chenille, handkerchiefs, cotton, thread, carpets, soap, leather, and malt and distilled liquors, are manufactured; and there are brass founderies, boat-building yards, &c. The town owes its existence to the priory, founded about 1160, on the E. bank of the Cart, by Walter, high steward of Scotland. In 1219 the priory was raised to an abbacy by Pope Honorius III. With the growth of this establishment arose Paisley, which in 1488 was erected by James IV. into a free burgh of barony.
PAIXHANS, Henri Joseph, a French inventor, born in Metz, Jan. 22, 1783, died at his estate of Jouy-aux-Arches, near Metz, Aug. 19, 1854. He was educated at the polytechnic school, entered the artillery, and rose to the rank of general of division. He was a member of the chamber of deputies from 1830 to 1848, and was successively connected with the ministry of war, the committee on artillery, and several commissions of national defence. The guns and projectiles which bear his name were first employed in France in 1824. The guns, which were originally between 9 and 10 ft. long and weighed 75 cwt., were especially adapted for the projection of hollow cylindro-conical shot and shells. In connection with his inventions Gen. Paixhans made numerous useful suggestions to the French government respecting the armament of ships of war or fortresses for the defence of the seacoast. (See Artillery, vol. i., p. 789.) He published Considérations sur l'artillerie (Paris, 1815); Nouvelle force maritime (1822), his most important work; and Force et faiblesse de la France (1830).
PAJOU, Augustin, a French sculptor, born in Paris, Sept. 19, 1730, died there, May 8, 1809. He passed 12 years as a government pensioner at Rome, and returned to Paris in 1760. He executed more than 200 works in stone, metal, and wood, and for many years was professor of sculpture in the academy of fine arts.
PALACKY, Frantisek, a Bohemian historian, born at Hodslawitz, Moravia, June 14, 1798. He was educated at Presburg and Vienna, and from 1827 to 1837 was editor of the Časopis českeho Museum, the journal of the national museum at Prague. In 1829 he was appointed national historiographer, and commenced his "History of Bohemia" (vols. i.–v., 1836–'67), during the progress of which he published a "Theory of the Beautiful," a "History of Æsthetics," "Literary Journey to Italy in 1837," the Archiv česky (5 vols., 1840–'66), "Oldest Memorials of the Bohemian Language," and other works. In 1848 he was president of the Slavic congress at Prague, and soon afterward was sent as representative to the Austrian parliament. Both in the Austrian house of lords, of which in 1861 he became a member for life, and in the provincial diet of Bohemia, he was for years the leader of the Czech national party. Having vainly opposed the reconstruction of Austria on a German-Hungarian basis to the detriment of the Czech nationality, he took part in 1867 in the Panslavic gathering at Moscow. The most important of his later works is a collection of Documenta illustrative of the life and doctrine of Huss (1869).
PALÆOLOGUS, the name of a Byzantine family, first mentioned in history in the 11th century, and which occupied the throne of Constantinople from 1261 to 1453, the year in which that city was taken by the Turks. The first emperor of the family was Michael VIII.; the last, Constantine XIII., was killed while fighting in defence of his capital. A member of this family, Theodore, a son of Andronicus II., received the principality of Montferrat in Italy in 1305, in right of his mother Yolante, and in the hands of this branch it remained till 1533. Another branch of the house reigned in the Morea from 1380 to 1460. The family is supposed to have become extinct with Theodore Palæologus, who died in England in 1693.
PALÆONTOLOGY (Gr. παλαίος, ancient, ὄντα, beings, and λόγος, discourse; i.e., the study of ancient beings), the science which treats of the evidences of organic life upon the earth during the different past geological periods of its history. These evidences consist in the remains of plants and animals imbedded or otherwise preserved in the rocky strata or upon their surfaces, and in other indications of animal existence, such as trails, footprints, burrows, and coprolitic or other organic material found in the rocks. From very remote times men had observed these objects in the rocky strata, far above the level of the ocean. Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Strabo, Seneca, and Pliny allude to the existence of marine shells at a distance from the sea; and by all the ancients their occurrence was connected with changes of the
