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the pressure employed. A few grains, struck with a hammer on an anvil, explode with a noise like that of a musket, and torrents of purple light appear round it. Thrown into concentrated sulphuric acid, it takes fire and burns with a white flame, but without noise.

Six parts of the chlorate, one of sulphur, and one of charcoal, detonate by the same means, but more strongly, and with a redder flame.

Sugar, gum, or charcoal, mixed with the chlorate, and fixed or volatile oils, alcohol, or ether, made into a paste with it, detonate very strongly by the stroke, but not by trituration. Some of them take fire, but slowly, and by degrees, in the sulphuric acid.

All those mixtures that detonate by the stroke, explode much more loudly if previously wrapped up in double paper.

Fulminations of the most violent kind require the agency of azote or nitrogen; as we see not only in its compounds with the oxides of gold, silver, and platina; but still more remarkably in its chloride and iodide.

A fulminating antimonic powder has been prepared by M. Serullas in the following manner:-Grind carefully together 100 parts of tartar emetic and three parts of lamp-black, or ordinary charcoal powder. Crucibles capable of holding about three ounces of water, to be only three-fourths filled, are to be ground smooth on their edges, and rubbed inside with powdered charcoal, so as to dust lightly their surface, and prevent the subsequent adherence of the carbonaceous cone which remains after the calcination. The above mixture, being introduced into the crucible, is to be covered with a layer of powdered charcoal; and the joinings of the cover must be luted. After exposure for three hours to a good heat in a reverberatory furnace, the crucible must be removed, and left to cool for six or seven hours. This interval of time is necessary to allow the air, which always penetrates a little way into the crucibles, to burn the exterior coat of the fulminating mass; otherwise, if it be taken out too recently, there is always an explosion. We must then hastily enclose it, without breaking, into a glass with a wide opening. After some time, it spontaneously breaks down into fragments of different sizes, retaining all its properties for years. When the calcination has been conducted as above, the product is excessively fulminating, so that, without the least compression, it gives rise to a violent detonation on contact with water. 100 parts of antimony, seventy-five of carbureted cream of tartar, and twelve of lamp black, triturated together, form also an excellent mixture. A piece of the size of a pea of this fulminating compound introduced into a mass of gunpowder explodes it when thrown into water. It is to the presence of potassium that the above explosive property is due. Sixty parts of carbureted cream of tartar, 120 of bismuth, and one of nitre, treated as above, yield an alloy very rich in potassium, of which the smallest portion cut with scissars sparkles. When bruised it melts and burns.-An.de. Chim. Oct. 1822.

POWDER, JAMES's. See JAMES'S POWDER.

POWDER MAGAZINE, a bomb-proof arched building, to contain powder in fortified places. POWEL (David), D. D., a Welsh divine and antiquary, born in Denbighshire, about 1552, and educated at Oxford, where he graduated. He became vicar of Ruabon, in Denbighshire. He published Caradoc's History of Wales, with annotations, in 1584; and several other works. He died at Ruabon in 1590.

POWELL (Sir John), a judge of the common pleas and king's bench, was born at Gloucester, which city he represented in parliament in 1685. In 1687 he was made one of the justices of common pleas, from which he was removed to the king's bench the following year, when he distinguished himself on the trial of the seven bishops, and was in consequence deprived of office; but he was restored to it at the revolution. He was a sound lawyer, and a man of humor. An old woman being tried before him on the charge of witchcraft, among other things it was stated that she could fly. 'Prisoner,' said the judge, is it true that you can fly?' 'Yes, my lord.' 'Well, then, you may; for there is no law against flying;' and he directed the jury to acquit her. He died a judge in 1713.

POW'ER, n. s.
POWER'ABLE, adj.
POWER'FUL,
POWER'FULLY, adv.

POWER FULNESS, n. s.
POWER'LESS, adj.

Fr. pouvoir; Span. poder. Command; dominion; authority; influence arising from greatness; ability; strength; motive; force: hence motion of the mind; faculty; one invested with power; host; army; divinity: powerable is an obsolete adjective for capable of performing: powerful, forcible; mighty; influential: the adverb and noun-substantive corresponding: powerless, weak; impotent.

After the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken.

Matthew.

Care, not fear; or fear not for themselves, altered something the countenances of the two lovers: but so as any man might perceive, was rather an assembling of powers than a dismayedness of courage.

Sidney.

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.If ever You meet in some fresh cheek the power of fancy,

Then you shall know the wounds invisible, Id. That love's keen arrows make.

I was in the thought, they were not fairies, and yet the guiltiness of my mind, the sudden surprise of my powers, drove the grossness of the foppery into a received belief. Id. Merciful powers! Restrain in me the cursed thoughts, that nature Gives way to in repose. Id. Macbeth.

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'Tis not in the power of want or slavery to make them miserable. Addison.

Henry II., endeavouring to establish his grandfather's laws, met with powerful opposition from archbishop Becket. Ayliffe. The grain-gold upon all the golden coast of Guinea, is displayed by the rains falling there with incredible force, powerfully beating off the earth. Woodward.

Though it be not in our power to make affliction no affliction; yet it is in our power to take off the edge of it, by a steady view of those divine joys prepared for us in another state. Atterbury. Maintain the empire of the mind over the body, and keep the appetites of the one in due subjection to the reasoning powers of the other.

Id.

Power is no blessing in itself, but when it is employed to protect the innocent.

Swift. The design of this science is to rescue our reasoning powers from their unhappy slavery and darkness. Watts.

POWNALL (Thomas), F. R.S. and F.S.A., an ingenious writer, was born at Lincoln in 1722, and became secretary to the commissioners for trade and plantations in 1745. In 1753 he went to America, where he prevented the formation of a congress in the seven years' war. For this he was made governor of Massachusetts, whence he removed to New Jersey, and next to South Carolina, where he continued till 1761, when he was recalled, and made director-general of the office of control with the rank of colonel. He died at Bath in 1805. His works are: 1. On the Administration of the Colonies. 2. Description of part of North America, folio. 3. Treatise on the Study of Antiquities, 8vo. 4. Memorials addressed to the Sovereigns of Europe and the Atlantic. 5. On the Antiquities of the Provincia Romana of Gaul, 4to. 6. Descriptions of Roman Antiquities dug up at Bath, 4to. tellectual Physics, 4to.

7. In

POX, n. s. Sax. poccar. See Pock. Properly pocks, which originally signified small bags or pustules; pustules; efflorescences. is used of many eruptive distempers.

O! if to dance all night and dress all day Charm'd the small por, or chac'd old age away. Milton.

Dorset.

It

Wilt thou still sparkle in the box, Canst thou forget thy age and pox? Though brought to their ends by some other apparent disease, yet the por had been judged the foundation.

Wiseman.

Pox, SMALL. See MEDICINE, Index.
POZE, v. a. To puzzle. See POSE.
And say you so? then I shall poze you quickly.
Shakspeare.

Of human infirmities I shall give instances, not that I design to poze them with those common enigmas of magnetism, fluxes and refluxes. Glanville.

PRACHIN, one of the sixteen circles of Bohemia, occupies the south-west corner of the kingdom. Its area is 1820 square miles; and on the borders of Bavaria it has a number of lofty mountains, covered with forests; the interior is more level and fertile. The Moldau has is source here, but the Wottawa is the larger stream. In the mountains are found precious stones, and in the sands of the Wottawa some gold dust and pearls. The Bohemian is the

prevailing language. Population 210,000. The chief town is Piseck.

PRACTICE, n. s.

PRACTICABLE, adj.

Fr. pratique; Lat. practica; Gr. pакPRACTICABLY, adv. TUKη. Habit; cusPRACTICABLENESS, n.s. tom; use; method; PRACTICAL, adj. dexterity; perform PRACTICALLY, adv. ance: practicable is PRACTICALNESS, n. s. (performable; feasiPRACTIC, adj. ble; assailable: the PRACTISE, v. a. & v. n. adverb and nounPRACTISANT, N. S. substantive corresPRACTISER, ponding practical PRACTITIONER. and practick (the latter obsolete), relating to action; not merely speculative: the adverb and noun-substantive that follow corresponding: to practise, to do habitually or constantly: as a verb neuter, to form a habit of acting; transact; use; a profession; use bad or deceitful arts: practiser and practitioner, he who practises.

Incline not my heart to practise wicked works with men that work iniquity. Psalm cxli. 4. Will truth return unto them that practise in her? Ecclus.

us.

He sought to have that by practice which he could not by prayer; and, being allowed to visit us, he used the opportunity of a fit time thus to deliver Sidney. Thereto his subtile engines he doth bend, His practick wit, and his fair filed tongue, With thousand other sleights. There are some papistical practitioners among you. Whitgifte.

Spenser.

This disease is beyond my practice; yet I have known those which have walked in their sleep, who have died holily in their beds. Shakspeare.

Shall we thus permit

A blasting and a scandalous breath to fall
On him so near us? this needs must be practice;
Who knew of your intent and coming hither?

When he speaks,

Id.

The air, a chartered libertine, is still; And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears, To steal his sweet and honied sentences; So that the act and practick part of life Must be the mistress to this theorick. If thou do'st him any slight disgrace, he will practise against thee by poison. Id. As You Like It. Here entered Pucelle and her practisants.

Id.

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The meanest capacity, when he sees a rule practically applied before his eyes, can no longer be at a loss how it is to be performed. Rogers.

Tooth-drawers are practical philosophers, that go upon a very rational hypothesis, not to cure, but to take away the part affected. Steele.

After one or more ulcers formed in the lungs, I never, as I remember, in the course of above forty years' practice, saw more than two recover.

Blackmore. This is a practicable degree of christian magnanimity. Atterbury. The author exhorts all gentlemen practitioners to exercise themselves in the translatory. Arbuthnot Others by guilty artifice and arts Of promised kindness practice on our hearts; With expectation blow the passion up, She fans the fire without one gale of hope. Granville.

Unreasonable it is to expect, that those who lived before the rise and condemnation of heresies, should come up to every accurate form of expression which long experience afterwards found necessary, to guard the faith, against the subtle practices, or provoking insults of its adversaries. Waterland.

Some physicians have thought, that if it were practicable to keep the humours of the body in an exact balance of each with its opposite, it might be immortal; but this is impossible in the practice. Swift.

I do not know a more universal and unnecessary mistake among the clergy, but especially the younger practitioners. Id.

PRACTICE, in military education, or gunpractice. In the spring, as soon as the weather permits, the exercise of the great guns begins, with an intention to show the gentlemen cadets, at the royal military academy at Woolwich, and private men, the manner of laying, loading.

pointing, and firing the guns. Sometimes instruments are used to find the centre line, or two points, one at the breach, the other at the muzzle, which are marked with chalk, and whereby the piece is directed to the target: then a quadrant is put into the mouth to give the gun the required elevation, which at first is guessed at, according to the distance the target is from the piece. When the piece has been fired, it is sponged to clear it from any dust or sparks of fire that might remain in the bore, and loaded; then the centre line is found as before; and if the shot went too high or too low, to the right or to the left, the elevation and trail are altered accordingly. This practice continues morning and evening for about six weeks, more or less, according as there are a greater or less number of recruits. In the mean time others are shown the motions of quick-firing with field-pieces. Mortar-practice is generally acquired thus: a line of 1500 or 2000 yards is measured in an open spot of ground from the place where the mortars stand, and a flag fixed at about 300 or 500 yards this being done, the ground where the mortars are to be placed is prepared and levelled with sand, so that they may lie at an elevation of forty-five degrees; then they are loaded with a small quantity of powder at first, which is increased afterwards by an ounce every time, till they are loaded with a full charge; the times of the flights of the shells are observed to determine the length of the fuzes. The intention of this practice is when a mortar battery is raised in a siege, to know what quantity of powder is required to throw the shells into the works at a given distance, and to cut the fuzes of a just length, that the shell may burst as soon as it touches the ground.

PRADON (Nicholas), a French dramatic poet, born at Rouen in the seventeenth century. He affected to be the rival of Racine; and, through the support of a party, his tragedy of Phædra and Hippolytus appeared for some time to balance the reputation of Racine's tragedy of the same title. He died at Paris in 1698.

PRACOG'NITA, n. s. Latin præcognita. Things previously known in order to understand something else.

Either all knowledge does not depend on certain præcognita or general maxims, called principles, or else these are principles.

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Locke.

PRÆMUNIRE, in law, is taken either for a writ so called, or for the offence whereon the writ is granted; the one may be understood by the other. It is named, from the first words of the writ, Præmunire facias, A. B.-Cause A. B. to be forewarned-that he appear before us to answer the contempt wherewith he stands charged;' which contempt is particularly recited in the preamble to the writ. It derived its origin from the exorbitant power claimed and exercised in England by the pope; and was originally ranked as an offence immediately against the king; because it consisted in introducing a foreign power into this land, and creating imperium in imperio, by paying that obedience to papal process which constitutionally belonged to the king alone, long before the Reformation in the reign of Henry VIII. The church of

Rome, under pretence of her supremacy and the dignity of St. Peter's chair, took on her to bestow most of the ecclesiastical livings of any worth in England, by mandates, before they were void. These provisions were so common that at last Edward I., in the thirty-fifth year of his reign, made a statute against papal provisions, which, Coke says, is the foundation of all the subsequent statutes of præmunire. In the reign of Edward II. the pope again endeavoured to encroach, but the parliament withstood him; and it was one of the articles charged against that unfortunate prince that he had given allowance to the pope's bulls. But Edward III. to remedy these grievances, in conjunction with his nobility, wrote an expostulatory letter to the pope; but receiving a menacing answer, acquainting him that the emperor and the king of France had lately submitted to the holy see, Edward replied, that if both the emperor and the French king should undertake the pope's cause, he was ready to give battle to them both, in defence of the liberties of the crown. Hereupon more sharp and penal laws were devised against provisors, which enact, that the court of Rome shall present or collate to no bishopric or living in England; and that whoever disturbs any patron in the presentation to a living by virtue of a papal provision, such provisor shall pay fine and ransom to the king, and be imprisoned till he renounces such provision; and the same punishment is inflicted on such as cite the king, or any of his subjects, to answer in the court of Rome. And, when pope Urban V. attempted to revive the vassalage and annual rent to which king John had subjected his kingdom, it was unanimously agreed by all the estates, 40 Edw. III., that king John's donation was null and void, being without the concurrence of parliament, and contrary to his coronation oath; and all the nobility and commons engaged that, if the pope should endeavour to maintain these usurpations, they would resist him with all their power. In the reign of Richard II. it was found necessary to strengthen these laws; and therefore it was enacted by statutes 3 Ric. II. c. 3, and 7 c. 12, that no alien shall be capable of letting his benefice to farm; or of being presented to any ecclesiastical preferment, under the penalty of the statutes of provisors. By stat. 12 Ric. II. c. 15, all liegemen of the king accepting of a living by any foreign provision are put out of the king's protection, and the benefice made void. To which the statute 13 Ric. II. st. 2, c. 2, adds banishment, and forfeiture of lands and goods: and, by c. 3, any person bringing over any citation or excommunication from beyond sea, on account of the execution of the foregoing statutes of provisors, shall be imprisoned, forfeit his goods and lands, and suffer pain of life and member. The next statute, which is referred to by all subsequent statutes, is called the statute of præmunire. It is the statute 16 Ric. II. c. 5, which enacts that whoever procures, at Rome or elsewhere, any translations, processes, excommunications, bulls, instruments, or other things which touch the king, against him, his crown and realm, and all persons aiding and assisting therein, shall be put out of the king's protection, and their lands and

goods forfeited to the king's use, and they shall be attached by their bodies to answer to the king and his council; or process of præmunire facias shall be made out against them, as in other cases of provisors. By stat. 2 Henry IV. c. 3, all persons who accept any provision from the pope, to be exempt from canonical obedience to their proper ordinary, are also subjected to the penalties of præmunire. In the reign of Henry VIII. the penalties of præmunire were extended to more equal abuses; as the kingdom then entirely denounced the authority of the see of Rome. And therefore, by the several statutes of 24 Hen. VIII. c. 12, and 25 Hen. VIII. c. 19 and 21, to appeal to Rome from any of the king's courts, to sue to Rome for any license or dispensation, or to obey any process from thence, are made hable to the pains of præmunire. To restore to the king the nomination of vacant bishoprics, and yet keep up the established forms, it is enacted by stat. 25 Henry VIII. c. 20, that if the dean and chapter refuse to elect the person named by the king, or any archbishop or bishop to confirm or consecrate him, they shall fall within the penalties of the statutes of præmunire. By stat. 5 Eliz. c. 1, to refuse the oath of supremacy will incur the penalties of præmunire; and to defend the pope's jurisdiction in this realm is a præmunire for the first offence, and high treason for the second. By stat. 13 Eliz. c. 2, to import any agni Dei, crosses, beads, or other superstitious things pretended to be hallowed by the bishop of Rome, and tender the same to be used; or to receive the same with such intent, and not discover the offender; or if a justice of the peace, knowing thereof, shall not within fourteen days declare it to a privy counsellor, they all incur a præmunire. But importing or selling mass books, or other popish books, is by stat. 3 Jac. I. c. 5, sec. 25, only liable to a penalty of 40s. Lastly, to contribute to the maintenance of a Jesuit's college, or any popish seminary beyond sea, or any person in the same, or to contribute to the maintenance of any Jesuit or Popish priest in England, is by stat. 27 Eliz. c. 2, made liable to the penalties of præmunire. Thus far the penalties of præmunire kept within the bounds of their original institution, depressing the power of the pope; but they have since been extended to other heinous offences. Thus 1. By the stat. 1 and 2 Ph. & M. c. 8, to molest the possessors of abbey lands granted by parliament to Henry VIII. and Edward VI. is a præmunire. 2. So likewise is the offence of acting as a broker or agent in any usurious contract, where above ten per cent. interest is taken, by stat. 13 Eliz. c. 10. 3. To obtain any stay of proceedings, other than by arrest of judgment or writ of error, in any suit for a monopoly, is likewise a præmunire, by stat. 21 Jac. I. c. 3. 4. To obtain an exclusive patent for the sole making or importation of gun-powder or arms, or to hinder others from importing them, is also a præmunire, by statutes 16 Car. I. c. 21, and 1 Jac. II. c. 8. 5. To assert, maliciously and advisedly, by speaking or writing, that parliament has a legislative authority without the king, is declared præmunire by stat. 13 Car. II. c. 1. 7. By the habeas corpus act, also, 31 Car. II. c. 2, it is a

a

præmunire, and incapable of the king's pardon, to send any subject of this realm a prisoner into parts beyond the seas. 8. By stat. 1 W. & M. stat. 1, c. 8, persons of eighteen years of age, refusing to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, upon tender by a magistrate, are subject to the penalties of a præmunire; and by stat. 8 and 9 W. III. c. 24, serjeants, counsellors, proctors, attorneys, and all officers of courts, practising without having taken these oaths, aud subscribed the declaration against popery, are guilty of a præmunire, whether the oaths be tendered or not. 2. By stat. 6 Ann. c. 7, to assert maliciously and directly, by preaching, teaching, or advised speaking, that the then pretended prince of Wales, or any person other than according to the acts of settlement and union, has any right to the throne of these kingdoms, or that the king and parliament cannot make laws to limit the descent of the crown; such preaching, teaching, or advised speaking, is a præmunire: as writing, printing, or publishing the same doctrines, amounted to high treason. 10. By stat. 6 Ann. c. 23, if the assembly of peers of Scotland, convened to elect their ten representatives in the British parliament, shall presume to treat of any other matter save only the election, they incur the penalties of a præmunire. 11. The stat. 6 Geo. I. c. 18 (enacted after the infamous South Sea project), makes all unwarrantable undertakings by unlawful subscriptions, then commonly known by the name of bubbles, subject to the penalties of præmunire. 12. The stat. 12 Geo. III. c. 11, subjects to the penalties of præmunire all such as knowingly and wilfully solemnise, assist, or are present at, any. forbidden marriage of such of the descendants of the body of king George II. as are by that act prohibited to contract matrimony without the consent of the crown. The punishment of præmunire may be gathered from the foregoing statutes, which are thus summed up by Coke: That, from the conviction, the defendant shall be out of the king's protection, and his lands and tenements, goods and chattels, forfeited to the king; his body shall remain in prison at the king's pleasure or during life. These forfeitures do not bring this offence within felony; being inflicted by particular statutes, and not by the common law. But so odious, Sir Edward Coke adds, was this offence of præmunire, that a man that was attainted of it might have been slain by any other man without danger of law; but this was soon held untenable, and explained that it is only lawful to kill him in the heat of battle, or for necessary self-defence. And, to obviate such savage notions, the stat. 5 Eliz. c. 1, expressly provides that it shall not be lawful to kill any person attainted in a præmunire. But still such delinquent, though protected as a part of the public from public wrongs, can bring no action for any private injury, how atrocious soever; being so far out of the protection of the law that it will not guard his civil rights, nor remedy any grievance which he as an individual may suffer. And no man, knowing him to be guilty, can with safety give him comfort, aid, or relief.

PRÆNESTE, in ancient geography, a town of Latium, south-east of Rome, towards the terri

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