See Dio Cassius, xlvi-xlix.; Appian, Bell. civ. iv. 84-117, v. 2-143; Vell. Pat. ii. 73-87; Plutarch, Antony; Livy, Epit. 123, 128, 129, 131; Cicero, Philippica, xiii., and many references in Letters to Atticus. POMPIGNAN, JEAN JACQUES LEFRANC, MARQUIS DE (17091784), French poet, was born on the 17th of August 1709, at Montauban, where his father was president of the cour des aides, and the son, who also followed the profession of the law, succeeded in 1745 to the same charge. The same year he was also appointed conseiller d'honneur of the parlement of Toulouse, but his courageous opposition to the abuses of the royal power, especially in the matter of taxation, brought down upon him so much vexation that he resigned his positions almost immediately, his marriage with a rich woman enabling him to devote himself to literature. His first play, Didon (1734), which owed much to Metastasio's opera on the same subject, gained a great success, and gave rise to expectations not fulfilled by the Adieux de Mars (1735) and some light operas that followed. His reputation was made by Poésies sacrées et philosophiques (1734), much mocked at by Voltaire who punned on the title: "Sacrés ils sont, car personne n'y touche." Lefranc's odes on profane subjects hardly reach the same level, with the exception of the ode on the death of J. B. Rousseau, which secured him entrance to the Academy (1760). On his reception he made an ill-considered oration violently attacking the Encyclopaedists, many of whom were in his audience and had given him their votes. Lefranc soon had reason to repent of his rashness, for the epigrams and stories circulated by those whom he had attacked made it impossible for him to remain in Paris, and he took refuge in his native town, where he spent the rest of his life occupied in making numerous translations from the classics, none of great merit. La Harpe, who is severe enough on Lefranc in his correspondence, does his abilities full justice in his Cours littéraire, and ranks him next to J. B. Rousseau among French lyric poets. With those of other 18th-century poets his works may be studied in the Petits poètes français (1838) of M. Prosper Poitevin. His Euvres complètes (4 vols.) were published in 1781, selections (2 vols.) in 1800, 1813, 1822. His brother, JEAN Georges Lefranc DE POMPIGNAN (17151790), was the archbishop of Vienne against whose defence of the faith Voltaire launched the good-natured mockery of Les Lettres d'un Quaker. Elected to the Estates General, he passed over to the Liberal side, and led the 149 members of the clergy who united with the third estate to form the National Assembly. He was one of its first presidents, and was minister of public worship when the civil constitution was forced upon the clergy. POMPONAZZI, PIETRO (PETRUS POMPONATIUS) (1462–1525), Italian philosopher, was born at Mantua on the 16th of September 1462, and died at Bologna on the 18th of May 1525. His education, begun at Mantua, was completed at Padua, where he became doctor of medicine in 1487. In 1488 he was elected extraordinary professor of philosophy at Padua, where he was a colleague of Achillini, the Averroist. From about 1495 to 1509 he occupied the chair of natural philosophy until the closing of the schools of Padua, when he took a professorship at Ferrara where he lectured on the De anima. In 1512 he was invited to Bologna where he remained till his death and where he produced all his important works. The predominance of medical science at Padua had cramped his energies, but at Ferrara, and even more at Bologna, the study of psychology and theological speculation were more important. In 1516 he produced his great work De immortalitate animi, which gave rise to a storm of controversy between the orthodox Thomists of the Catholic Church, the Averroists headed by Agostino Nifo, and the so-called Alexandrist School. The treatise was burned at Venice, and Pomponazzi himself ran serious risk of death at the hands of the Catholics. Two pamphlets followed, the Apologia and the Defensorium, wherein he explained his paradoxical position as Catholic and philosophic materialist. His last two treatises, the De incantationibus and the De fato, were posthumously published in an edition of his works printed at Basel. Pomponazzi is profoundly interesting as the herald of the Renaissance. He was born in the period of transition when scholastic formalism was losing its hold over men both in the Church and outside. Hitherto the dogma of the Church had been based on Aristotle as interpreted by Thomas Aquinas. So close was this identification that any attack on Aristotle, or even an attempt to reopen the old discussions on the Aristotelian problems, was regarded as a dangerous heresy. Pomponazzi claimed the right to study Aristotle for himself, and devoted himself to the De anima with the view of showing that Thomas Aquinas had entirely misconceived the Aristotelian theory of the active and the passive intellect. The Averroists had to some extent anticipated this attitude by their contention that immortality does not imply the eternal separate existence of the individual soul, that the active principle which is common to all men alone survives. Pomponazzi's revolt went further the soul is the form of the body (as Aquinas also asserted), it than this. He held, with Alexander of Aprodisias, that, as must, by hypothesis, perish with the body; form apart from matter is unthinkable. The ethical consequence of such a view is important, and in radical contrast to the practice of the period. Virtue can no longer be viewed solely in relation to reward and punishment in another existence. A new sanction is required. Pomponazzi found this criterion in toû kaλoû ěveka -virtue for its own sake. Praemium essentiale virtutis est 66 ipsamet virtus quae hominem felicem facit," he says in the De immortalitate. Consequently, whether or not the soul be immortal, the ethical criterion remains the same: "Neque aliquo pacto declinandum est a virtute quicquid accidat post mortem." In spite of this philosophical materialism, Pomponazzi declared his adherence to the Catholic faith, and thus established the principle that religion and philosophy, faith and knowledge, may be diametrically opposed and yet coexist for the same thinker. This curious paradox he exemplifies in the De incantatione, where in one breath he sums up against the existence the cosmos, and, as a believing Christian, asserts his faith in of demons and spirits on the basis of the Aristotelian theory of their existence. In this work he insists emphatically upon the orderly sequence of nature, cause and effect. Men grow to maturity and then decay; so religions have their day and succumb. Even Christianity, he added (with the usual proviso that he is speaking as a philosopher) was showing indications of decline. nazzi (1910); also Ritter, Geschichte der Philosophie; J. A. Symonds, See A. H. Douglas, Philosophy and Psychology of Pietro PompoThe Renaissance in Italy; Windelband, History of Philosophy (trans. by James H. Tufts, pt. 4, c. 1); J. Burckhardt, Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien; L. Ferri, La Psicologia di P. Pomponazzi. (J. M. M.) POMPONIUS, LUCIUS, called Bononiensis from his birthplace Bononia, Latin comic poet, flourished about 90 B.C. (or earlier). He was the first to give an artistic form to the Atellanae Fabulae by arranging beforehand the details of the plot which had hitherto been left to improvisation, and providing a written text. The fragments show fondness for alliteration and playing upon words, skill in the use of rustic and farcical language, and a considerable amount of obscenity. Fragments in O. Ribbeck, Scenicae romanorum poesis fragmenta (1897-1898); see Mommsen, Hist. of Rome (Eng. tr.), bk. iv. ch. 13; Teuffel-Schwabe, Hist. of Roman Literature (Eng. tr.), § 151. POMPOSA, an abbey of Emilia, Italy, in the province of Ferrara, 2 m. from Codigoro, which is 30 m. E. of Ferrara in the delta of the Po. The fine church, a work of the 10th (?) century, with interesting sculptures on the façade and a splendid Romanesque campanile, contains a good mosaic pavement, and interestschool of Giotto and others; and there are also paintings in the ing frescoes of the 14th century-a "Last Judgment" of the refectory. It was abandoned in 1550 on account of malaria. See G. Agnelli, Ferrara e Pomposa (Bergamo, 1902). (T. As.) POMPTINE MARSHES, a low tract of land in the province of Rome, Italy, varying in breadth between the Volscian mountains and the sea from 10 to 16 m., and extending N.W. to S.E. from aged, and a military barracks. At the Quintana Baths near the city are thermal springs with medicinal properties. The surrounding country is devoted chiefly to the cultivation of sugar cane, tobacco, oranges and cacao, and to the grazing of cattle. Among the manufactures are sugar, molasses, rum, and ice, and prepared coffee for the market. Ponce, named in honour of Ponce de Leon, was founded in 1752 upon the site of a settlement which had been established in the preceding century, was incorporated as a town in 1848, and was made a city in 1878. Velletri to Terracina (40 m.). In ancient days this low tract | for the blind, a ladies' asylum, a home for the indigent and was fertile and well-cultivated, and contained several prosperous cities (Suessa Pometia, Ulubrae—perhaps the mod. Cisterna&c.), but, owing to the dying out of the small proprietors, it had already become unhealthy at the end of the Republican period. Attempts to drain the marshes were made by Appius Claudius in 312 B.C., when he constructed the Via Appia through them (the road having previously followed a devious course at the foot of the Volscian mountains), and at various times during the Roman period. A canal ran through them parallel to the road, and for some reason that is not altogether clear it was used in preference to the road during the Augustan period. Trajan repaired the road, and Theodoric did the same some four hundred years later. But in the middle ages it had fallen into disrepair. Popes Boniface VIII., Martin V., Sixtus V., and Pius VI. all attempted to solve the problem, the last-named reconstructing the road admirably. The difficulty arises from the lack of fall in the soil, some parts no less than 10 m. from the coast being barely above sea-level, while they are separated from the sea by a series of sand-hills now covered with forest, which rise at some points over 100 ft. above sea-level. Springs also rise in the district, and the problem is further complicated by the flood-water and solid matter brought down by the mountain torrents, which choke up the channels made. By a law passed in 1899, the proprietors are bound to arrange for the safe outlet of the water from the mountains, keep the existing canals open, and reclaim the district exposed to inundation, within a period of twenty-four years. The sum of £280,000 has been granted towards the expense by the government. PONCELET, JEAN VICTOR (1788-1867), French mathematician and engineer, was born at Metz on the 1st of July 1788. From 1808 to 1810 he attended the École polytechnique, and afterwards, till 1812, the École d'application at Metz. He then became lieutenant of engineers, and took part in the Russian campaign, during which he was taken prisoner and was confined at Saratov on the Volga. It was during his imprisonment here that, privé de toute espèce de livres et de secours, surtout distrait par les malheurs de ma patrie et les miens propres," as he himself puts it, he began his researches on projective geometry which led to his great treatise on that subject. This work, the Traité des propriétés projectives des figures, which was published in 1822 (2d ed., 2 vols. 1865–1866), is occupied with the investigation of the projective properties of figures (see GEOMETRY). This work entitles Poncelet to rank as one of the greatest of those who took part in the development of the modern geometry of which G. Monge was the founder. From 1815 to 1825 he was occupied with military engineering at Metz; and from 1825 to 1835 he was professor of mechanics at the Ecole d'application there. In 1826, in his Mémoire sur les roues hydrauliques à aubes courbes, he brought forward improvements in the construction of water-wheels, which more See T. Berti, Paludi pontine (Rome, 1884); R. de la Blanchère, Un Chapitre d'histoire pontine (Paris, 1889). (T. As.) PONANI, a seaport on the west coast of India, in Malabar district, Madras, at a mouth of a river of the same name. Pop. (1901), 10,562. It is the headquarters of the Moplah or Map-than doubled their efficiency. In 1834 he became a member of pilla community of Mahommedans, with a religious college and many mosques, one of which is said to date from 1510. There is a large export of coco-nut products. PONCA, a tribe of North-American Indians of Siouan stock. They were originally part of the Omaha tribe, with whom they lived near the Red River of the North. They were driven westward by the Dakotas, and halted on the Ponca river, Dakota. After a succession of treaties and removals they were placed on a reservation at the mouth of the Niobrara, where they were prospering, when their lands were forcibly taken from them, and they were removed to Indian Territory (Oklahoma). During the march thither and in their new quarters, the tribe's health suffered, so that in 1878 they revolted and made their way back to the Omahas. They were recaptured, but public attention having been drawn to their hard case they were liberated in 1880, after a long trial, which resulted in their being declared United States citizens. They number some 700, mostly in Oklahoma. PONCE, a seaport and the second largest city of Porto Rico, the seat of government of the Department of Ponce, on the south coast, about 50 m. (84 m. by the military road) S.W. of San Juan. Pop. (1899), 27,952, of whom 2554 were negroes and 9942 of mixed races; (1910), 35,027. It is served by the American Railroad of Porto Rico, by a railway to Guayama (1910), and by steamboats from numerous ports; an old military road connects it with San Juan. Ponce consists of two parts: Ponce, or the city proper, and Ponce Playa, or the seaport; they are separated by the Portuguese River and are connected by an electric street railway. Ponce, Playa is on a spacious bay and is accessible to vessels drawing 25 ft. of water; Ponce is 2 m. inland at the interior margin of a beautiful plain, with hills in the rear rising to a height of 1000 to 2000 ft. The city is supplied with water by an aqueduct about 2 m. long. There are two attractive public squares in the heart of the city: Plaza Principal and Plaza de las Delicias. Among prominent public buildings are the city hall, the custom-house, the Pearl theatre, several churchesRoman Catholic (including a finely decorated cathedral) and Protestant; St Luke's hospital and insane asylum, an asylum the Académie; from 1838 to 1848 he was professor to the faculty of sciences at Paris, and from 1848 to 1850 commandant of the École polytechnique. At the London International Exhibition of 1851 he had charge of the department of machinery, and wrote a report on the machinery and tools on view at that exhibition. He died at Paris on the 23rd of December 1867. See J. Bertrand, Eloge historique de Poncelet (Paris, 1875). PONCHER, ÉTIENNE DE (1446-1524), French prelate and diplomatist. After studying law he was early provided with a prebend, and became councillor at the parlement of Paris in 1485 and president of the Chambre des Enquêtes in 1498. Elected bishop of Paris in 1503 at the instance of Louis XII., he was entrusted by the king with diplomatic missions in Germany and Italy. After being appointed chancellor of the duchy of Milan, he became keeper of the seals of France in 1512, and retained that post until the accession of Francis I., who employed him on various diplomatic missions. Poncher became archbishop of Sens in 1519. His valuable Constitutions synodales was published in 1514. PONCHIELLI, AMILCARE (1834-1886), Italian musical composer, was born near Cremona on the 1st of September 1834. He studied at the Milan Conservatoire. His first dramatic work, written in collaboration with two other composers, was Il Sindaco Babbeo (1851). After completing his studies at Milan he returned to Cremona, where his opera I Promessi sposi was produced in 1856. This was followed by La Savojarda (1861, produced in a revised version as Lina in 1877), Roderigo, rè dei Goti (1864), and La Stella del monte (1867). A revised version of I Promessi sposi, which was produced at Milan in 1872, was his first genuine success. After this came a ballet, Le Due Gemelle (1873), and an opera, I Lituani (1874, produced in a revised version as Alduna in 1884). Ponchielli reached the zenith of his fame with La Gioconda (1876), written to a libretto founded by Arrigo Boito upon Victor Hugo's tragedy, Angelo, Tyran de Padoue. La Gioconda was followed by Il Figliuol prodigo (1880) and Marion Delorme (1885). Among his less important works are Il Parlatore eterno, a musical farce (1873), | out with fine public buildings; the water-supply is derived from and a ballet, Clarina (1873). In 1881 Ponchielli was made artesian wells. It has an open roadstead, with a small iron maestro di cappella of Piacenza Cathedral. His music shows the influence of Verdi, but at its best it has a distinct value of its own, and an inexhaustible flow of typically Italian melody. His fondness for fanciful figures in his accompaniments has been slavishly imitated by Mascagni, Leoncavallo, and many of their contemporaries. Ponchielli died at Milan on the 17th of January 1886. pier. The port is visited yearly by 500 vessels, and has trade of the value of about some £1,300,000. The principal imports are areca-nuts, wines and liqueurs, and the chief exports groundnuts, oil, cotton fabrics and rice. Of the export trade more than one-half is with France, but of the import trade only onefourth. The weaving of various fabrics forms the principal industry. Pondicherry was founded in 1683 by François Martin, on the site of a village given him by the governor of Gingee. In 1693 the Dutch took Pondicherry, but restored it, with the fortifications greatly improved, in 1697, at the peace of Ryswick. In 1748 Admiral Boscawen laid siege to it without success, but in 1761 it was taken by Colonel Coote from Lally. In 1763 it was restored to the French. In 1778 it was again taken by Sir Hector Munro, and its fortifications destroyed. In 1783 it was retransferred to the French, and in 1793 recaptured by the English. The treaty of Amiens in 1802 restored it to the French, but it was retaken in 1803. In 1816 it was finally restored to the French. PONCHO (a South American Spanish word, adopted from the Araucanian poncho or pontho in the 17th century), a form of cloak worn originally by the South American Indians, and afterwards adopted by the Spaniards living in South America. It is merely a long strip of cloth, doubled, with a hole for the head. POND, JOHN (c. 1767-1836), English astronomer-royal, was born about 1767 in London, where his father made a fortune in trade. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, at the age of sixteen, but took no degree, his course being interrupted by severe pulmonary attacks which compelled a long residence abroad. In 1800 he settled at Westbury near Bristol, and began to determine star-places with a fine altitude and azimuth PONDO, a Kaffir people who have given their name to Pondocircle of 2 ft. diameter by E. Troughton. His demonstration land, the country comprising much of the seaboard of Kaffraria, in 1806 (Phil. Trans. xcvi. 420) of a change of form in the Cape province, immediately to the south-west of Natal. The Greenwich mural quadrant led to the introduction of astro-Pondo, who number about 200,000, are divided into several nomical circles at the Royal Observatory, and to his own appointment as its head. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society on the 26th of February 1807; he married and went to live in London in the same year, and in 1811 succeeded Maskelyne as astronomer-royal. During an administration of nearly twenty-five years Pond effected a reform of practical astronomy in England comparable to that effected by Bessel in Germany. In 1821 he began to employ the method of observation by reflection; and in 1825 he devised means (see Mem. Roy. Astron. Soc. ii. 499) of combining two mural circles in the determination of the place of a single object, the one serving for direct and the other for reflected vision. Under his auspices the instrumental equipment at Greenwich was completely changed, and the number of assistants increased from one to six. The superior accuracy of his determinations was attested by S. C. Chandler's discussion of them in 1894, in the course of his researches into the variation of latitude (Astron. Journ. Nos. 313, 315). He persistently controverted (1810-1824) the reality of J. Brinkley's imaginary star-parallaxes (Phil. Trans. cviii. 477, cxiii. 53). Delicacy of health compelled his retirement in the autumn of 1835. He died at Blackheath on the 7th of September 1836, and was buried beside Halley in the churchyard of Lee. The Copley medal was conferred upon him in 1823, and the Lalande prize in 1817 by the Paris Academy, of which he was a corresponding member. He published eight folio volumes of Greenwich Observations, translated Laplace's Système du monde (in 2 vols. 8vo., 1809), and contributed thirty-one papers to scientific collections. His catalogue of 1112 stars (1833) was of great value. See Mem. Roy. Astron. Soc. x. 357; Proc. Roy. Soc. iii. 434; Penny Cyclopaedia (De Morgan); F. W. Bessel, Pop. Vorlesungen, P. 543: Report Brit. Assoc. i. 128, 136 (Airy); Sir G. Airy's Autobiography, p. 127; Observatory, xiii. 204, xxii. 357; Annual Biography and Obituary (1837); R. Grant, Hist. of Phys. Astron. p. 491; Royal Society's Cat. Scient. Papers. POND, a small pool or body of standing water, a word often applied to one for which the bed has been artificially constructed. The word is a variant of "pound" (q.v.), an enclosure. PONDICHERRY, the capital of the French possessions in India, situated on the Coromandel or western coast, 122 m. by rail S. of Madras. The territory, which is entirely surrounded by the British district of South Arcot, has an area of 115 sq. m. with a population (1901) of 174,456. The chief crops are dry grains, rice, earth-nuts and a little indigo. The territory is traversed by a branch of the South Indian railway from Villapuram. The town has a population of 27,448. It is well laid tribal groups, but the native government, since the annexation of the country to Cape Colony in 1894, has been subject to the control of the colonial authorities. (See KAFFIRS.) PONDWEED, a popular name for Potamogeton natans, a cosmopolitan aquatic plant found in ponds, lakes and ditches, with broad, more or less oblong-ovate, olive-green, floating leaves. The name is also applied to other species of Potamogeton, one of the characteristic genera of lakes, ponds and streams all over the world, but more abundant in temperate regions. It is the principal genus of the natural order of Monocotyledous Potamogetonaceae, and contains plants with slender branched stems, and submerged and translucent, or floating and opaque, alternate or opposite leaves, often with membranous united stipules. The small flowers are borne above the water in d odty 1, Apex of flowering shoot. 3, Flower, viewed from the side. PONIARD, a dagger, particularly one of small size, used for stabbing at close quarters. The French word poignard, from which the English is a 16th-century adaptation, is formed from | national forces. In 1789, when Poland was threatened by the poing, fist, the clenched hand in which the weapon is grasped. (See DAGGER.) PONIATOWSKI, the name of a Polish princely family of Italian origin, tracing descent from Giuseppe Torelli, who married about 1650 an heiress of the Lithuanian family of Poniator, whose name he assumed. The first of the Poniatowskis to distinguish himself was STANISLAUS PONIATOWSKI (1677-1762), who only belonged to the family by adoption, being the reputed son of Prince Sapieha and a Jewess. He was born at Dereczyn in Lithuania, and was adopted by Sapieha's intendant, Poniatowski. With his father he attached himself to the party of Stanislaus Leszczynski, and became major-general in the army of Charles XII. of Sweden. After the defeat of Pultowa he conveyed Charles XII. across the Dnieper, and remained with him at Bender. From there he was sent to Constantinople, where he extracted from the sultan Achmet III. a promise to march to Moscow. When the grand vizier, Baltagi Mehemet, permitted the tsar Peter I. to retreat unharmed from the banks of the Pruth, Poniatowski exposed his treason. He rejoined Leszczynski in the duchy of Zweibrücken, Bavaria, of which he became governor. After the death of Charles XII. in 1718 he visited Sweden; and was subsequently reconciled with Leszczynski's rival on the throne of Poland, Augustus II., who made him grand treasurer of Lithuania in 1724. On the death of Augustus II. he tried to secure the reinstatement of Leszczynski, who then resumed his claims to the Polish crown. He was taken prisoner at Danzig by the Russians, and presently gave his allegiance to Augustus III., by whom he was made governor of Cracow. He died at Ryki on the 3rd of August 1762. His second son Stanislaus Augustus became king of Poland (see STANISLAUS II.). Of the other sons, Casimir (1721-1780) was his brother's chancellor; Andrew (1735-1773) entered the Austrian service, rising to the rank of feldzeugmeister; and Michael (1736-1794) became archbishop of Gnesen and primate of Poland. Joseph Anthony Poniatowski (q.v.), son of Andrew, became one of Napoleon's marshals. STANISLAUS PONIATOWSKI (1757-1833), son of Casimir, shared in the aggrandisement of the family during the reign of Stanislaus II., becoming grand treasurer of Lithuania, starost of Podolia and lieutenant-general of the royal army. In 1793 he settled in Vienna, and subsequently in Rome, where he made a magnificent collection of antique gems in his house on the Via Flaminia. This collection was sold at Christie's in London in May 1839. He died in Florence on the 13th of February 1833, and with him the Polish and Austrian honours became extinct. His natural, but recognized, son, JOSEPH MICHAEL XAVIER FRANCIS JOHN PONIATOWSKI (1816-1873), was born at Rome and in 1847 was naturalized as a Tuscan subject. He received the title of prince in Tuscany (1847) and in Austria (1850). He had studied music under Ceccherini at Florence, and wrote numerous operas, in the first of which, Giovanni di Procida, he sang the title rôle himself at Lucca in 1838. He represented the court of Tuscany in Paris from 1848, and he was made a senator by Napoleon III., whom he followed to England in 1871. His last opera, Gelmina, was produced at Covent Garden in 1872. He died on the 3rd of July 1873, and was buried at Chislehurst. His son, Prince Stanislaus Augustus, married and settled in Paris. He was equerry to Napoleon III., and died in January 1908. PONIATOWSKI, JOSEPH ANTHONY (1763-1813), Polish prince and marshal of France, son of Andrew Poniatowski and the countess Theresa Kinsky, was born at Warsaw in 1763. Adopt- | ing a military career, he joined the Imperial army when Austria declared war against the Turks in 1788, and distinguished himself at the storming of Sabac on the 25th of April, where he was seriously wounded. Recalled by his uncle King Stanislaus when the Polish army was reorganized, he received the rank of major-general, and subsequently that of lieutenant-general, and devoted himself zealously to the improvement of the armed intervention of Russia, he was appointed commander of the Ukraine division at Braclaw on Bug. After the proclamation of the constitution of the 3rd of May 1791 he was appointed commander-in-chief, with instructions to guard the banks of the Dniester and Dnieper. On the outbreak of the war with Russia, Prince Joseph, aided by Kosciuszko, displayed great ability. Obliged constantly to retreat, but disputing every point of vantage, he turned on the pursuer whenever he pressed too closely, and won several notable victories. At Polonna the Russians were repulsed with the loss of 3000 men; at Dubienka the line of the Bug was defended for five days against fourfold odds; at Zielence the Poles won a still more signal victory. Finally the Polish arms converged upon Warsaw, and were preparing for a general engagement when a courier from the capital informed the generals that the king had acceded to the confederation of Targowica (see POLAND: History) and had at the same time guaranteed the adhesion of the army. All hostilities were therefore to be suspended. After an indignant but fruitless protest, Poniatowski and most of the other generals threw up their commissions and emigrated. During the Kosciuszko rising he again fought gallantly for his country under his former subordinate, and after the fall of the republic resided as a private citizen at Warsaw for the next ten years. After Jena and the evacuation of the Polish provinces by Prussia, Poniatowski was offered the command of the National Guard; he set about reorganizing the Polish army, and on the creation of the grand duchy of Warsaw was nominated war minister. During the war of 1809, when an Austrian army corps under the archduke Ferdinand invaded the grand duchy, Poniatowski encountered them at the bloody battle of Radzyn, and though compelled to abandon Warsaw ultimately forced the enemy to evacuate the grand duchy, and captured Cracow. In Napoleon's campaign against Russia in 1812 Poniatowski commanded the fifth army corps; and after the disastrous retreat of the grand army, when many of the Poles began to waver in their allegiance to Napoleon, Poniatowski remained faithful and formed a new Polish army of 13,000 men with which he joined the emperor at Lützen. In the campaign of 1813 he guarded the passes of the Bohemian mountains and defended the left bank of the Elbe. As a reward for his brilliant services at the three days' battle of Leipzig he was made a marshal of France and entrusted with the honourable but dangerous duty of covering the retreat of the army. Poniatowski heroically defended Leipzig, losing half his corps in the attempt, finally falling back slowly upon the bridge over the Elster which the French, in the general confusion blew up before he reached it. Contesting every step with the overwhelming forces of the pursuers, he refused to surrender, and covered with wounds plunged into the river, where he died fighting to the last. His relics were conveyed to Poland and buried in Cracow Cathedral, where he lies by the side of Tadeusz Kosciuszko and Jan Sobieski. Poniatowski's Mes souvenirs sur la campagne de 1792 (Lemberg, 1863) is a valuable historical document. See Stanislaw Kostka Boguslawski, Life of Prince Joseph Poniatowski (Pol.; Warsaw, 1831); Franciszek Paszkowski, Prince Joseph Poniatowski (Pol.; Cracow, 1898); Correspondence of Poniatowski (ed. E. Raczynski, Posen, 1843); Bronislaw Dembinski, Stanislaus Augustus and Prince Joseph Poniatowski in the light of their Correspondence (Fr.; Lemberg, 1904); Szymon Askenazy, Prince Joseph Poniatowski (Pol.; Warsaw, 1905). (R. N. B.) PONS, JEAN LOUIS (1761-1831), French astronomer, was born at Peyres (Hautes Alpes) on the 24th of December 1761. He entered the Marseilles observatory in 1789, and in 1819 became the director of the new observatory at Marlia near Lucca, which he left in 1825 for the observatory of the museum at Florence. Here he died on the 14th of October 1831. Between 1801 and 1827 Pons discovered thirty-seven comets, one of which (observed on the 26th of November 1818) was named after J. F. Encke, who determined its remarkably short period. See M. R. A. Henrion, Annuaire biographique, i. 288 (Paris, 1834); Memoirs Roy. Astron. Soc. v. 410; R. Wolf, Geschichte der Astronomie. p. 709; J. C. Poggendorff, Biog. lit. Handwörterbuch. PONSARD, FRANÇOIS (1814-1867), French dramatist, was born at Vienne, department of Isère, on the 1st of June 1814. He was bred a lawyer, and his first performance in literature was a translation of Manfred (1837). His play Lucrèce was represented at the Théâtre Français on the 1st of April 1843. This date is a kind of epoch in literature and dramatic history, because it marked a reaction against the romantic style of Dumas and Hugo. He received in 1845 the prize awarded by the Academy for a tragedy "to oppose a dike to the waves of romanticism." Ponsard adopted the liberty of the romantics with regard to the unities of time and place, but he reverted to the more sober style of earlier French drama. The tastes and capacities of the greatest tragic actress of the day, Rachel, suited his methods, and this contributed greatly to his own popularity. He followed up Lucrèce with Agnès de Méranie (1846), Charlotte Corday (1850), and others. Ponsard accepted the empire, though with no very great enthusiasm, and received the post of librarian to the senate, which, however, he soon resigned, fighting a bloodless duel with a journalist on the subject. L'Honneur et l'argent, one of his most successful plays, was acted in 1853, and he became an Academician in 1855. For some years he did little, but in 1866 he obtained great success with Le Lion amoureux, another play dealing with the revolutionary epoch. His Galilée, which excited great opposition in the clerical camp, was produced early in 1867. He died in Paris on the 7th of July of the same year, soon after his nomination to the commandership of the Legion of Honour. Most of Ponsard's plays hold a certain steady level of literary and dramatic ability, but his popularity is in the main due to the fact that his appearance coincided with a certain public weariness of the extravagant and unequal style of 1830. His Euvres complètes were published in Paris (3 vols., 18651876). See La Fin du théâtre romantique et François Ponsard d'après des documents inédits (1899), by C. Latreille. PONSONBY, JOHN (1713-1789), Irish politician, second son of Brabazon Ponsonby, 1st earl of Bessborough, was born on the 29th of March 1713. In 1739 he entered the Irish parliament and in 1744 he became first commissioner of the revenue; in 1746 he was appointed a privy councillor, and in 1756 Speaker of the Irish House of Commons. Belonging to one of the great families which at this time monopolized the government of Ireland, Ponsonby was one of the principal " undertakers," men who controlled the whole of the king's business in Ireland, and he retained the chief authority until the marquess Townshend became lord-lieutenant in 1767. Then followed a struggle for supremacy between the Ponsonby faction and the party dependent on Townshend, one result of this being that Ponsonby resigned the speakership in 1771. He died on the 12th of December 1789. His wife was Elizabeth, daughter of William Cavendish, 3rd duke of Devonshire, a connexion which was of great importance to the Ponsonbys. Ponsonby's third son, George Ponsonby (1755-1817), lord chancellor of Ireland, was born on the 5th of March 1755 and was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. A barrister, he became a member of the Irish parliament in 1776 and was chancellor of the Irish exchequer in 1782, afterwards taking a prominent part in the debates on the question of Roman Catholic relief, and leading the opposition to the union of the parliaments. After 1800 Ponsonby represented Wicklow and then Tavistock in the united parliament; in 1806 he was lord chancellor of Ireland, and from 1808 to 1817 he was the official leader of the opposition in the House of Commons. He left an only daughter when he died in London on the 8th of July 1817. George Ponsonby's elder brother, William Brabazon Ponsonby, 1st Baron Ponsonby (1744-1806), was also a leading Whig politician, being a member of the Irish, and after 1800, of the British parliament. In 1806 shortly before his death he was created Baron Ponsonby of Imokilly. Three of his sons were men of note. The eldest was John (c. 1770-1855), who succeeded to the barony and was created a viscount in 1839; he was ambassador at Constantinople from 1832 to 1837 and at Vienna from 1846 to 1850. The second son was Major General Sir William Ponsonby (1772-1815), who, after serving in the Peninsular War, was killed at the battle of Waterloo whilst leading a brigade of heavy cavalry. Another son was Richard Ponsonby (1772-1853), bishop of Derry. Sir William Ponsonby's posthumous son William (1816-1861) became 3rd Baron Ponsonby on the death of his uncle John, Viscount Ponsonby; he died childless and, was succeeded by his cousin William Brabazon Ponsonby (1807-1866), only son of the bishop of Derry, on whose death the barony of Ponsonby became extinct. Among other members of this family may be mentioned MajorGeneral Sir Frederick Cavendish Ponsonby (1783-1837), son of the 3rd earl of Bessborough, a soldier who distinguished himself at the battles of Talavera, Salamanca and Vittoria, in the Peninsular War, and was wounded at Waterloo; he was governor of Malta from 1826 to 1835. His eldest son, Sir Henry Frederick Ponsonby (1825-1895), a soldier who served in the Crimea, is best remembered as private secretary to Queen Victoria from 1870 until a few months before his death. PONSON DU TERRAIL [PIERRE ALEXIS DE PONSON], VICOMTE DE (1829–1871), French romance writer, was born at Montmaur (Isère) on the 8th of July 1829. He was a prolific novelist, producing in the space of two years some seventythree volumes. Among his most successful productions were Les Coulisses du monde (1853), Exploits de Rocambole (1859), Les Drames de Paris (1865) and Le Forgeron de la Cour-Dieu (1869). He died at Bordeaux on the 20th of January 1871. PONT (or KYLPONT), ROBERT (1524-1606), Scottish reformer, was educated at St Andrews. In 1562 he was appointed minister at Dunblane and then at Dunkeld; in 1563, commissioner for Moray, Inverness and Banff. Then in succession he became minister of Birnie (1567), provost of Trinity College near Edinburgh (1571), a lord of session (1572), minister of St Cuthbert's, Edinburgh (1573) and at St Andrews (1581). Pont was a strenuous champion of ecclesiastical independence, and for protesting against parliamentary interference in church government he was obliged to leave his country. From 1584 to 1586 he was in England, but returning north he resumed his prominence in church matters and kept it until his death in 1606. His elder son Timothy Pont (1560?-1614?) was a good mathematician, surveyor, and " the first projector of a Scottish atlas." PONTA DELGADA, the capital of an administrative district, comprising the islands of St Michael's and St Mary in the Portuguese archipelago of the Azores. Pop. (1900), 17,620. Ponta Delgada is built on the south coast of St Michael's, in 37° 40′ N. and 25° 36′ W. Its mild climate, and the fine scenery of its mountain background, render it very attractive to visitors; it is the commercial centre, and the most populous city of the archipelago. Besides the cathedral, it contains several interesting churches and monasteries, and an observatory. Formerly its natural inner harbour only admitted vessels of light draught, while larger ships were compelled to anchor in an open roadstead, which was inaccessible during the prevalence of southerly gales. But great improvements were effected after 1860 by the construction of a breakwater 2800 ft. long. PONT-À-MOUSSON, a town of northern France in the department of Meurthe-et-Moselle, 17 m. N.N.W. of Nancy by rail. Pop. (1906), 12,282. The Moselle, which is canalized, divides the town into two quarters, united by a bridge of the late 16th century. The church of St Martin, dating from the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries, has a handsome façade with two towers, and in the interior a choir screen and Holy Sepulchre of the 15th century. The lower ecclesiastical seminary occupies the building of an old Premonstratensian convent. There are several interesting old houses. The town has a communal college and engineering workshops, blast furnaces, and manufactures of lacquered ware, paper, cardboard, cables and iron-ware. Dating from the 9th or 10th century, Pont-à-Mousson constituted a lordship, which was made a marquisate in 1354. It was from 1572 to 1763 the seat of a well-known university. PONTANUS, JOVIANUS (1426-1503), Italian humanist and poet, was born in 1426 at Cerreto in the duchy of Spoleto, |