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Cobalti-cyanide of potassium, (NC),Co". K,, forms yellow crystals isomorphous with those of red prussiate (see infra). It is a remarkably stable salt. In its behaviour to reagents it exhibits none of the characters of a cobalt salt or of a simple cyanide. Aqueous mineral acids convert it into the hydrogen salt (NC),Co"H3, which remains undecomposed on boiling. Heavy metallic salts produce precipitates of cobalti-cyanides; for example, (NC) Co". Ag,. (8) Ferrosum.-See "prussiate of potash" above. (9) Ferricum.Ferric hydrate and ferric compounds generally do not act upon cyanide of potassium in a manner analogous to that of ferrous compounds; but a ferri-cyanide analogous to the cobalti-salt referred to in (7) is readily produced by passing chlorine into a cold solution of ordinary prussiate, (NC) Fe". K1+Cl = KCl+(NC)fe". Kg.1 In preparing the salt an excess of chlorine and elevation of temperature must be avoided, or else part of the salt is decomposed with formation of a green precipitate. The solution on evaporation and cooling yields splendid dark red crystals, soluble in 2.54 parts of water of 15° 6 C. (Wallace), forming a most intensely yellow solution. (Ordinary prussiate solution is only pale yellow even when saturated in the cold.) This salt (discovered by L. Gmelin in 1822) is now being manufactured industrially and is known in commerce as red prussiate." In its reactions it is analogous to ordinary yellow prussiate. The same group, (NC) Fe, which in the latter acts as a four-valent, in the red salt plays the part of a tri-valent radical, (NC),fe. But the radical thus modified has a great tendency to assume the four-valent form; hence an alkaline solution of red prussiate is a powerful oxidizing agent, (NC),fe.K3+KHO=(NC) Fe. K1+HO. The HO goes to the reducing agent. Like the yellow salt, red prussiate is not poisonous, at least when pure.

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Ferro- and Ferri-cyanides of Iron.-The two prussiates are constantly being used in the laboratory as very delicate reagents for the detection of iron salt, and for the discrimination of ferrous and ferric compounds in solutions,-(1) ferro-cyanide and ferrous salt, white precipitate; (2) ferri-cyanide and ferric salt, intensely brown coloration; (3) ferro-cyanide and ferric salt, blue precipitate; (4) ferri-cyanide and ferrous salt, blue precipitate. These blue precipitates are being produced industrially and used as pigments, under the names of "prussian blue" and "Turnbull's blue" for (3) and (4) respectively. The latter has been thus known for now half a century; yet the constitution of the precipitates and the true rationale of their formation have been fully cleared up only during the last few years. The main results of the researches referred to are included in the following paragraphs.

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(1) Ferro-cyanide of Hydrogen, (NC),Fe. Ha, is obtained as a white crystalline precipitate when air-free concentrated solution of yellow precipitate is mixed with hydrochloric acid and ether. It is easily soluble in water and in alcohol. An aqueous solution of it is prepared for technical purposes by mixing a strong solution of yellow prussiate with enough tartaric acid to bring down the potassium as cream of tartar. When the solution of this ferro-hydrocyanic acid is boiled half the cyanogen goes off as NCH, while the other remains as part of a white, rather unstable, precipitate, (NC),Fe. H2 When the solution is exposed to the air, especially at higher temperatures, part of the cyanogen goes off as NCH, another part suffers oxidation into H,O+NC, and this latter combines with the Fe(NC), of the original compound into blue bodies similar in their general properties to prussian blue. This latter change is utilized in calico-printing for producing patterns of, or dyeing with, prussian blue. The white precipitate (NC),Fe. may be looked upon

as an acid of which

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(2) Everett's Salt, (NC),Fe. is the potash salt. This salt is K2' produced in the ordinary process for making prussic acid (see above). It is probably identical with the white precipitate produced when ferrous salt is decomposed by prussiate of potash. Everett's salt when exposed to the air quickly absorbs oxygen and becomes blue; the reaction, as Williamson showed, assumes a simple form when the precipitate is boiled with nitric acid. One-half of the potassium is then oxidized away, and a blue double ferri-cyanide of potassium and ferrosum takes the place of the original precipitate:

(NC) Fe. K.Fe (KO as nitrate) + {(NC),fe} "Fe"K'.

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tained lately is that the very same precipitate is produced by addition to a ferrous salt of an excess of red prussiate. I. (NC) fe. K2+ FeCl2=2KCl+(NC),fe. KFe=B'. II. (NC) Fe.K4 + feCl2 =3KCI+(NC),Fe. Kfe=B". B' and B" in the formule look different, but the difference is only apparent; in either case the group (NC), is combined with 1Fe and 1fe and 1K; the bodies are identical (Skraup; Reindel). The precipitate B, though insoluble in salt solutions, is soluble in pure water, forming an intensely blue solution; hence the name. Now the potassium in soluble prussian blue can be displaced by iron in two ways, namely, by digestion with solutions of ferrous or ferric salts. In the former case (NC),feFeK becomes (NC) feFeg, or empirically (NC), Fes; this is Gmelin's ("Turnbull's") blue. In the latter case (NC),Fefek becomes (NC), Fefe, or empirically (NC)18Fe, ; this is prussian blue as discovered by Diesbach. Contrasting this latter formula with that of Gmelin's blue (NC),Fe, we see that the latter needs only lose Fe to become prussian blue; this surplus iron in fact can be withdrawn by means of nitric acid. In the manufacture of prussian blue the general process is to first precipitate ferrous sulphate with yellow prussiate and then to fully oxidize the precipitate by means of nitric acid or chlorine as far as the oxygen of the air does not do it. The following receipt is recommended amongst others. Six parts each of green vitriol and yellow prussiate are dissolved separately, each in fifteen parts of water, and the solutions mixed. One part of concentrated sulphuric acid and twenty-four parts of fuming muriatic acid are then added, and after standing some hours also a solution of bleaching powder in instalments until the blue colour is fully developed. Turnbull's" blue is made by precipitating red prussiate of potash with excess of ferrous salt; but it is easily seen from what was said above that the use of this relatively expensive double cyanide might be dispensed with. The properties of the two pigments are pretty much the same. They are sold in the form of solid cakes or fumps, which, in addition to their blue colour, present a coppery lustre on fracture. They are stable against acids, but sensibly affected (bleached) on prolonged exposure to sunlight; and, although they stand neutral soap fairly well, they are decomposed promptly by solutions of even the carbonates of the alkalis with formation of hydrated oxides of iron. The cheaper commercial varieties are more or less largely diluted with clay, sulphate of baryta, &c. Pure prussian blue dissolves readily in a dilute solution of oxalic acid; the intensely blue solution used to serve as a blue ink, but has come to be superseded by the several more brilliant blues of the coal-tar series. These tar-blues have displaced prussian blue also in other applications, and as a commercial pigment it has besides to struggle against ultramarine. In short, it has gone very much out of use, and as a consequence the manufacture of yellow prussiate is no longer so remunerative as it used to be.

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Analysis of Cyanides.-As hydrocyanic acid and cyanide of potassium are dangerously poisonous, and the latter at least is easily procured in commerce, the detection of cyanogen in this state of detect such cyanogen in, say, the contents of a stomach the first combination is one of the problems of forensic chemistry. step is to distil the mass after acidification with tartaric acid, which decomposes cyanide of potassium but does not liberate prussic acid from prussian blue (or even prussiate of potash?). If the distillate gives no precipitate with nitrate of silver hydrocyanic acid is absent, if it does the precipitate may have been produced by hydrochloric acid, which may then be eliminated by redistillation with borax or sulphate of soda, neither of which affects NCH. even in the presence of chlorides the following two tests give perfect certainty. (1) A solution of hydrocyanic acid, when alkalinized with caustic potash and then mixed with, first ferroso-ferric salt and then excess of hydrochloric acid, gives a precipitate, or at least a green suspension, of prussian blue. (2) A solution of NCH, when mixed with ammonia and yellow sulphide of ammonium, is changed into one of sulphocyanate of ammonium, which, after removal of the excess of reagents by evaporation at a gentle heat, strikes an intense and very characteristic red colour with ferric salts, which colour does not vanish (as that of ferric acetate does) on even strong acidification with mineral acid (Liebig's test). The quantitative determination of cyanogen given as an aqueous solution of hydrocyanic acid or cyanide of potassium can (if haloids are absent) be effected by adding excess of nitrate of silver, then acidifying, if necessary, with nitric acid, filtering off, washing, drying, and weighing the cyanide of silver produced. AgNC=134 corresponds to NCH=27 parts. A more expeditious method has been invented by Liebig. A known quantity of the given prussic acid is alkalinized strongly with caustic potash and then diluted freely with water. The caustic alkali usually contains plenty of chloride as an impurity, else a little alkaline chloride must be added. A standard solution of nitrate of silver (conveniently adjusted so as to contain 6 30 grammes of fused nitrate per 1000 cubic centimètres, equivalent to 2 grammes of NCH) is now dropped in from a burette until the cloud of chloride of silver which appears locally from the first just fails to disappear on stirring, i.e., until the reaction 2KNC+AgÑO,=KAg.(NC), + KNO ̧

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has just been completed. One cub. cent. of silver solution used | indicates 2 milligrammes of NCH. Liebig's method lends itself particularly well for the assaying of the medicinal acid and of cyanide of potassium. The two tests for hydrocyanic acid given above apply as they stand to solutions of. the cyanides of alkali and alkaline-earth metals, but not to mercuric cyanide. In regard to all other cyanides we have only space to say that from a certain set (which includes the cobalti-cyanides and the platinum cyanides) cyanogen cannot be extracted at all as NCH (or AgNC) by any known methods. Such bodies must be identified by their own specific reactions or by elementary analysis. All cyanides are decomposed by hot concentrated sulphuric acid; the carbon goes off as CO, the nitrogen remains as sulphate of ammonia and the metals as sulphates, which brings them within the range of the routine methods of analysis.

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Cyanates.-These were discovered by Wöhler. The potassium salt NCO.K is produced by the oxidation of fused cyanide, for preparative purposes most conveniently by Wöhler's method. intimate mixture of two parts of absolutely anhydrous prussiate of potash and one part of equally dry binoxide of manganese is heated on an iron tray until the mass has become brownish black and just begun to fuse. It is now allowed to cool and exhausted by boiling 80 per cent. alcohol. The filtrate on cooling deposits crystals of the salt NCO.K. If only an aqueous solution of this salt is wanted for immediate use, the fuse may be extracted by cold water. From this solution the cyanate of silver, NCO.Ag, or lead, (NCO), Pb, can be prepared by precipitation with solutions of the respective nitrates or acetates. Hot water decomposes cyanate of potash promptly with formation of carbonates of potash and ammonia, KNCO+2H,O=NH2+ KHO+CO2. On addition of mineral acid to even the cold solution only a very little of the cyanic acid is liberated as such; the bulk breaks up at once with effervescence, thus, NCO.H+2H20=NH,+CO2+H,O. Very interesting is the action of the solution of cyanate of potash on sulphate of ammonia; its direct effect is the formation of cyanate of ammonia, NCO.NH, but this salt almost immediately passes spontaneously into its isomer urea, which is not a cyanate at all but the amide of carbonic acid, ie., CO(OH), -2(OH)+2NH,= CO2 NH2 This reaction was NH2 discovered by Wöhler, who thus for the first time produced an organic substance from inorganic materials, or virtually from its elements. Singularly, it is this pseudo-cyanate urea which serves as a material for making cyanic acid. When hydrochlorate of urea, HCI. CON H, is heated to 145° C. the latter behaves as if it were cyanate of ammonia: the ammonia unites with the hydrochloric acid into sal-ammoniac and the cyanic acid is set free, but immediately suffers polymerization into cyanuric acid, a solid tri-basic acid of the composition NC,O,H,, which, being difficultly soluble, can be freed from the sal-ammoniac by being washed with cold water. If perfectly anhydrous cyanuric acid be subjected to dry distillation it furnishes a distillate of (liquid) cyanic acid NCO. H, which must be condensed in a vessel surrounded by a freezing mixture.

Cyanic acid has a very appreciable vapour-tension even at ordinary temperatures, and the least trace of its vapour makes itself felt by a characteristically violent and dangerous action on the respiratory organs. With dry ammonia gas it unites into true cyanate of ammonia. We do not know much of its own properties, because as soon as it comes out of the freezing mixture it begins to suffer polymerization into "cyamelid" with great evolution of heat. This cyamelid is a porcelain-like mass, insoluble in all ordinary solvents and devoid of acid properties. Dry distillation reconverts it into cyanic acid.

NCS. Cu, comes down, which, if enough of reagent was used, contains all the copper. If sulphocyanate is added to nitrate of silver, all the silver is precipitated as Ag. NCS, similar in appearance to the chloride and, like it, insoluble in water and in nitric acid. Upon this and the fact that sulphocyanates strike a deep red colour with ferric salts Volhard has based an excellent titrimetric method for the determination of silver. (See SILVER.)

Syntheses of Cyanogen Compounds.-Synthetical organic chemistry dates from Wöhler's discovery of the artificial formation of urea, and in the further development of this branch of the science cyanogen has played a prominent part. (For illustrations we may refer to certain passages in the present article and in those on METHYL and on NITROGEN.) Hence it is worth while to enumerate briefly the synthetical method for the making of cyanogen itself. (1) Hydrocyanic acid is produced when a current of electric sparks is made to cross a mixture of acetylene, CH, and nitrogen. (2) Cyanide of ammonium is formed when ammonia is passed over red-hot charcoal (see supra). (3) Metallic cyanides are produced when dry nitrogen gas is passed over a dry mixture of carbonate of potash or baryta and charcoal at a white heat. A similar reaction goes on spontaneously in the iron-smelting furnaces and gives rise to the formation of vapour of cyanide of potassium. (4) Sulphocyanide of ammonium is produced from bisulphide of carbon and ammonia, as explained above. (W. D.)

Thiocyanates.This term means bodies like cyanates, but containing sulphur instead of the oxygen of the latter. Thiocyanates are better known, however, as sulphocyanates or sulphoevanides. (1) The potassium salt NCS.K is formed when cyanide of potassium is fused with sulphur or certain metallic sulphides, , PbS. The usual method of preparation is to fuse together forty-six parts of dehydrated yellow prussiate of potash, seventeen of dry carbonate of potash, and thirty-two of sulphur. The fuse is exhausted with boiling alcohol and the filtered solution allowed to cool, when crystals of the salt separate out. The salt is very soluble in water with characteristically large absorption of heat. (2) The ammonium salt NCS. NH, can be prepared by allowing a mixture of alcohol, strong aqueous ammonia, and bisulphide of carbon to stand for a time and then warming it. Thiocarbonate of ammonium, CS,. (NHS, is produced first, but subsequently it gives up 2HS to the ammonia and becomes NCS. NH, which is easily obtained in crystals. The tar water obtained in the manufacture of coal-gas sometimes contains sufficient quantities of this salt to make it worth while to recover it. Both the potassium and the ammonium salt are much used as reagents, and more especially as precipitants for copper and silver. Solutions of cupric salt when mixed with sulphocyanate assume the dark-brown colour of the cupric salt Cu(NCS), but on addition of sulphurous acid the colour disappears and a white precipitate of cuprous sulphocyanide,

PRYNNE, WILLIAM (1600-1669), was born at Swainswick near Bath in 1600. He was educated at Bath grammar-school, and became a commoner of Oriel College, Oxford, in 1616, taking his B.A. in 1621; he was admitted a student of Lincoln's Inn in the same year, and in due time became a barrister. His studies led him deeply into legal and constitutional lore, and no less deeply into ecclesiastical antiquities. He was Puritan to the core, with a tenacious memory, a strength of will bordering upon obstinacy, and a want of sympathy with human nature in its manifold variety. His first book, The Perpetuity of a Regenerate Man's Estate, 1627, was devoted to a defence of one of the main Calvinistic positions, and The Unloveliness of Love-locks and Health's Sickness, 1628, were devoted to attacks upon prevailing fashions, conducted without any sense of proportion, and treating follies on the same footing as scandalous vices.

After the dissolution of parliament in 1629 Prynne came forward as the assailant of Arminianism in doctrine and of ceremonialism in practice, and thus drew down upon himself the anger of Laud. Histrio-mastix, published in 1633, was a violent attack, not upon the special immoralities of the stage of Prynne's day but upon stageplays in general, in which the author laid himself open to the charge of assailing persons in high position, in the first place by pointing out that kings and emperors who had favoured the drama had been carried off by violent deaths, which assertion might easily be interpreted as a warning to the king, and in the second place by applying a disgraceful epithet to actresses, which, as Henrietta Maria was taking part in the rehearsal of a ballet just as the sheet containing the offensive words was passing through the press, was supposed to apply to the queen. On 17th February 1634 Prynne was sentenced by the Star Chamber to be imprisoned and also to be fined £5000, expelled from Lincoln's Inn, rendered incapable of returning to his profession, degraded from his degree in the university of Oxford, and set in the pillory, where he was to lose both his ears. On 7th May Prynne was placed in the pillory and lost his ears. The rest of the sentence, with the exception of the clause relating to the payment of the fine, was carried out. A sharp letter written by him to Laud criticizing his arguments at the trial was made the founda tion of a fresh charge. Prynne, however, got the letter into his hands and tore it up. Though he was again brought before the Star Chamber, on 11th June, no addi tional penalty was inflicted on him. There is no reason to suppose that his punishment was unpopular. In 1637 he was once more in the Star Chamber, together with Bastwick and Burton. In A Divine Tragedy lately acted

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he had attacked the Declaration of Sports, and in News | in the House of Commons. He at once took part against from Ipswich he had attacked Wren and the bishops generally. On 30th June a fresh sentence, that had been delivered on the 14th, was executed. The stumps of Prynne's ears were shorn off in the pillory. When on 27th July he was sent to what was intended to be perpetual imprisonment at Lancaster his journey was a triumphal progress, the imposition of ship-money and the metropolitical visitation having rendered the minds of Englishmen far more hostile to the Government than they had been in 1634. Before long Prynne was removed to Mont Orgeuil Castle in Jersey, where it was hoped that he could be so entirely isolated that no word of his would reach the outer world again.

Immediately upon the meeting of the Long Parliament in 1640 Prynne was liberated. On 28th November he entered London in triumph, and on 2d March 1641 reparation was voted by the Commons, to be made to him at the expense of his persecutors. As might have been expected, Prynne after his release took the side of the Parliament strongly against the king, especially attacking in his writings his old enemies the bishops, and accusing Charles of showing undue favour to the Roman Catholics. He commented on the words of Psalm cv., "Touch not mine anointed," by arguing that they inhibited kings from injuring God's servants who happened to be their subjects, and in a lengthy work entitled The Sovereign Power of Parliaments and Kingdoms he maintained that the taking arms by parliament in a necessarily defensive war was no treason either in law or in conscience.

Prynne's sufferings had not served to render him compassionate to others. In 1643 he took an active part in the proceedings against Nathaniel Fiennes for the surrender of Bristol. During this and the following year, however, his chief energies as a prosecutor were directed against Archbishop Laud. The cessation of hostilities with the Irish insurgents agreed to on 15th September 1643 brought Charles's relations with the Catholics into increased disrepute, and Prynne attacked Laud as the soul of a great Popish plot by publishing both before and after his execution various collections of documents, one of which at least was garbled to render it more telling. Even before the execution of Laud Prynne found a new enemy in the Independents. In 1644 he published Twelve Considerable Serious Questions touching Church Government, in which he upheld the right of the state to form a national church in accordance with the word of God, and reviled the Independents, partly as advocating an unscriptural discipline, partly as introducing heresy and division, and maintaining that all religions ought to be tolerated. To the principle of individual liberty Prynne was from the beginning to the end irreconcilably hostile. For some time to come he poured forth pamphlet after pamphlet in vindication of his assertions. Flowing out of this controversy came another, beginning in 1645 with Four Short Questions, privately circulated, and followed by A Vindication of Four Serious Questions of Great Importance, in which he denied the right of the clergy to excommunicate or to suspend from the reception of the sacrament otherwise than by law. Prynne, in short, maintained the supremacy of the state over the church, whilst he argued that the state ought to protect the church from the rivalry of sectarian associations.

Early in 1648 Prynne broke new ground. The Levellers Levelled was directed against the dangerous opinion that the Lords should be brought down into the House of Commons, there to sit and vote. As usual, he argued his case on purely antiquarian and technical grounds, without any intellectual grasp of his subject.

On 7th November 1648 Prynne at last obtained a seat

those who called for the king's execution, and on 5th December delivered a speech of enormous length in favour of conciliating the king, who had inflicted the most grievous injuries upon him and whose misgovernment he had bitterly denounced. The result was his inclusion in Pride's "purge" on the morning of the 6th, when, having attempted resistance to military violence, he was subjected to imprisonment. A fresh protest, published on 1st January 1649 under the title of A Brief Memento to the Present Unparliamentary Junto, coupled with his contemptuous refusal to avow his authorship, brought about a fresh order of imprisonment on 10th January from the House of Commons itself, which, however, does not seem to have been carried out. After recovering his liberty Prynne retired to Swainswick. On 7th June 1649 he was assessed to the monthly contribution laid on the country by Parliament. He not only refused to pay but published A Legal Vindication of the Liberties of England on the ground that no tax could be raised without the consent of the two Houses. In the same year he commenced a long historical account of ancient parliaments, which was evidently intended to reflect on the one in existence. In 1650 his labours were cut short by a warrant from President Bradshaw, dated 1st July, and ordering his arrest. For the remainder of the year he was imprisoned in Dunster Castle, whence he was removed in January 1651 to Taunton, and in July to Pendennis Castle. On 1st February 1652 the council of state ordered his discharge on giving a bond of £1000 to do nothing to the prejudice of the Commonwealth. On his resolute refusal to accept the condition an absolute order for his release was given on 18th February. From his release till the death of Cromwell Prynne refrained from making any further assault on the existing Government. His strong conservatism, however, found expression in an argument in defence of advowsons and patronages and an attack on the Quakers, both published in the same year, as well as in an argument against the admission of the Jews to England issued in the beginning of 1655.

It was not until the restoration of the Rump Parliament by the army on 7th May 1659 that Prynne again came into prominent notice, though he had in the previous year issued A Plea for the Lords and House of Peers and A New Discovery, viz., that Quakers were Jesuits in disguise. On that day, in addition to the Rump, fourteen of the secluded members, with Prynne among them, claimed admittance. The claim was of course refused, but on a second attempt on the 9th, through the inadvertence of the doorkeepers, Prynne, Annesly, and Hungerford succeeded in taking their seats. When they were observed, however, no business was done, and the House purposely adjourned for dinner. At the return of members in the afternoon the doors were found guarded; the secluded members were not permitted to pass, and a vote was at once taken that they should not again be allowed to enter the House. Wrathful at the failure of his protest and at the continuance of the republican form of government, Prynne attacked his adversaries fiercely in print. In England's Confusion, published 30th May 1659, in the True and Full Narrative, and in The Brief Necessary Vindication he gave long accounts of the attempt to enter the House and of his ejection, while in the Curtaine Drawne he held up the claims of the Rump to derision. In Mola Asinaria the ruling powers are described as "a new-fangled Government, compacted of Treason, Usurpation, Tyranny, Theft, and Murder." Wood, however, denies that this was by Prynne. In Shuffling, Cutting, and Dealing, 26th May, he rejoiced at the quarrels which he sees arising, for "if you all complain I hope I shall win at last." Concordia Discors pointed out

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the absurdity of the constant tendency to multiply oaths, | debate on the Ministers' Bill, he urged a settlement on while "remonstrances," "narratives," "queries," "prescrip- the principle that the ministers should be compelled to tions," ," "vindications," "declarations," and "statements take the oath, but that "all presentations should be good were scattered broadcast. Upon the cry of the "good old throughout, though not by the right patrons, in time of cause" he is especially sarcastic and severe in The True trouble." On 17th August he spoke passionately against Good Old Cause rightly stated and other pamphlets. any leniency whatsoever being extended to any of the Loyalty Banished explains itself. His activity and fear- king's judges. It is curious, however, to find that the lessness in attacking those in power during this eventful House appointed him to carry the petition to the king in year were remarkable, and an ironical petition was circu- favour of Lambert or Vane. When the question of dislated in Westminster Hall and the London streets com- banding came up, for the carrying out of which he was in plaining of his indefatigable scribbling. On 12th October October made one of the commissioners, Prynne moved the Rump was again expelled by Lambert, and on 24th that no arrears should be paid to those who had acted December once more restored. On 26th December Prynne with Lambert and did not submit. On 7th November he made another fruitless attempt to take his seat. In obedi- supported the Bill for the attainder of Cromwell and others ence to the popular voice, however, the ejected members who had participated in the king's execution, and were of 1648, with Prynne among them, wearing a basket-hilt since dead, and particularly desired that the House would sword, re-entered the House and resumed their old seats on take the first and second reading at the same sitting, as 21st February 1660. He boldly declared that if Charles was done in the case of the king's trial. At some time in was to come back it were best done by the votes of those this year (1660) he wrote a letter on the evil custom of who had made war on his father, and was admonished for drinking healths, a subject discussed in the House on his language by Monk and the privy council. This parlia- 10th November. There was indeed scarcely any debate in ment recalled Charles and dissolved itself immediately, which Prynne's voice was not heard; he spoke against Prynne bringing in the Bill for the dissolution on 24th laying the cost of the abolition of the court of wards February. On 13th March he appears as one of three upon the excise, having been in August appointed on appointed to carry out the resolution of the House expung- the commission for appeals and regulating the excise, ing the Engagement. and in favour of Bills against the profanation of the Lord's Day (in which his knowledge of ecclesiastical controversy again appeared) and against swearing. He appears at this time to have been officially connected with the Admiralty. He supported on 27th November the abortive attempt to turn the king's declaration concerning ecclesiastical affairs into a Bill, and moved against the payment of the debts of the attainted regicides. In December he wrote against the bishops to the king, thus blemishing his late services." During this year was published 4 Seasonable Vindication of the Supream Authority A and Jurisdiction of Christian Kings, Lords, Parliaments, as well over the Possessions as Persons of Delinquents, Prelates, and Churchmen.

The Convention Parliament, which met on 25th April 1660, contained a large number of Presbyterians. Prynne, who was returned for two places, Ludgershall and Bath, elected to sit for the latter, and on 16th June presented to the king an address from the corporation, evidently drawn up by himself, under the title of Bathonia Rediviva. On 1st May he was nominated on the committee appointed "to peruse the Journals and Records, and to examine what pretended Acts or orders have passed, inconsistent with the government by King, Lords, and Commons, and report them, with their opinion thereon, to this House," and to secure the steady administration of the law, and the confirmation of the legal judgments of the past years. On 9th May he went to the Lords with various loyal votes of the Commons, and again on 18th May and on 9th June. On 3d June he "fell upon" Ashley Cooper for putting his hand to the "instrument" to settle the Protector in power. On the 13th he moved that Colonel Fleetwood, Richard Cromwell, John Goodwin, Thorpe, and Whitelock should be excepted from the Act of general pardon and oblivion, the speedy passing of which he strongly urged upon the House. It is said that at the Restoration he applied to be made one of the barons of the exchequer, and that it was in default of this, and to keep so active a man in good temper, that he was appointed chief keeper of the records in the Tower with a salary of £500 a year by Charles, "of his owne meere motion for my services and sufferings for him under the late usurpers, and strenuous endeavours by printing and otherwise to restore His Majesty." On 2d July he supported a proposal that all officers who had served during the Protectorate should now refund their salaries, and declared that he knew that those persons had received above £250,000 for their iniquitous doings and to keep out the king, a charge he had previously made on 12th May. In all the debates he was for severity upon any one who had held office under Cromwell. On 9th July he spoke "very honestly and passionately" from the Presbyterian point of view in the first great debate on religion, and on the 16th declared he "would not be for bishops unless they would derive their power from the king and not vannt themselves to be jure divino." In the debate of the 27th upon the Lords' delay in passing the Act of Indemnity Prynne found an opportunity for expressing his hatred of priests and Jesuits; and on the 30th, in the

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At the elections for the Pensionary Parliament, which met on 8th May 1661, Prynne was again returned as member for Bath in spite of the vehement efforts of the Royalists headed by Sir T. Bridge. This parliament was bent upon the humiliation of the Presbyterians, and Prynne appears in his familiar character of protester. On 30th May, when the members took the sacrament together at St Margaret's, "Mr Prynne and some few others refused to take it kneeling. The parson with the bread passed on and refused to give it, but he with the wine, not noticing, gave the wine." With Secretary Morris Prynne opposed the motion that Dr Gunning should receive the thanks of the House and be desired to print his sermon. On the 18th of this month he had moved that the Engagement, with the Solemn League and Covenant, should be burned by the hangman. On 13th July he was the subject of attack, as being in a way the representative of Presbyterianism; the House in its vehement Anglicanism declared that his paper lately published, Sundry Reasons against the new intended Bill for governing and reforming Corporations, was illegal, false, scandalous, and seditious. Prynne was censured, and so strong was the feeling that he deemed it best to express his sorrow, upon which the offence was remitted. The continued attacks upon the Presbyterians led him to publish his Short, Sober, Pacific Examination of Exuberances in the Common Prayer, as well as the Apology for Tender Consciences touching Not Bowing at the Name of Jesus. In 1662 there appeared also the Brevia Parliamentaria Rediviva, possibly a portion of the Register of Parlia mentary Writs, of which the fourth and concluding volume was published in 1664. During 1663 he served constantly

on committees, and was chairman of the committee of supply in July, and again in April 1664.

In the third session Prynne was once more, 13th May 1664, censured for altering the draft of a Bill relating to public-houses after commitment, but the House again, upon his submission, while taking severe notice of an irregularity committed by "so ancient and knowing a member," remitted the offence, and he again appears on the committee of privileges in November and afterwards. In 1665 and 1666 he published the second and first volumes respectively of the Exact Chronological Vindication and Historical Demonstration of the supreme ecclesiastical jurisdiction exercised by the English kings from the original planting of Christianity to the death of Richard I. the latter year especially he was very busy with his pen against the Jesuits. In January 1667 he was one of three appointed to manage the evidence at the hearing of the impeachment of Lord Mordaunt, and in November of the same year spoke in defence of Clarendon, so far as the sale of Dunkirk' was concerned; and this appears to have been the last time that he addressed the House. In 1668 was published his Aurum Reginæ or Records concerning Queen-gold, the Brief Animadversions on Coke's Institutes in 1669, and the History of King John, Henry III., and Edward I., in which the power of the crown over ecclesiastics was maintained, in 1670. The date of the Abridgment of the Records of the Tower of London is doubtful, though the preface is dated 1656/57. Prynne died in his lodgings at Lincoln's Inn, 24th October 1669, and was buried in the walk under the chapel there, which stands upon pillars. His will, by which he gave one portion of his books to Lincoln's Inn and another to Oriel College, is dated 11th August 1669. Prynne was never married. The following curious account of his habits is given by Wood. "His custom when he studied was to put on a long quilted cap which came an inch over his eyes, serving as an umbrella to defend them from too much light; and, seldom eating a dinner, would every three hours or more be munching a roll of bread, and now and then refresh his exhausted spirits with ale brought to him by his servant." There is a portrait of him in Oriel College, Oxford, and Wood mentions one by Hollar, and an engraving by Stent, as (S. R. G.-O. A.)

the best extant.

which had been the cause of death,—an institution prob-
ably existing from a very remote antiquity.

PRZEMYSL, one of the principal towns of Galicia,
Austria, and the seat of a Roman Catholic and of a Greek
bishop, is picturesquely situated on the river San, about
It contains several
140 miles to the east of Cracow.
churches, of which the two cathedrals are the most inter-
esting, and numerous convents, schools, and seminaries.
Among its manufactures are wooden wares, linen, leather,
and liqueur, and a brisk trade is carried on in these articles
and in agricultural produce. The trade is mostly in the
hands of Jews, who form fully a third of the population.
On the hill above the town are the ruins of an old castle,
said to have been founded by Casimir the Great. Since
1874 Przemysl has been strongly fortified. The population
of the town proper in 1880 was 9244, of the commune
20,040.

Przemysl, one of the oldest towns in Galicia, claims to have been
founded in the 8th century, and was at one time capital of a large
independent principality. Casimir the Great and other Polish
princes endowed it with privileges similar to those of Cracow, and it
attained a high degree of prosperity. In the 17th century its im-
portance was destroyed by inroads of Tatars, Cossacks, and Swedes.

PSALMANAZAR, GEORGE (c. 1679-1763), the assumed name of a pretended native of Formosa, who was in reality a Frenchman, and was born about 1679, probably in Languedoc. According to his own account he was sent in his seventh year to a free school taught by two Franciscan monks, after which he was educated in a Jesuit college "in an archiepiscopal city." On leaving college he was recommended as tutor to a young gentleman, but soon fell into a lazy and idle life and became involved in pecuniary difficulties. This induced him to assume various personations in order to obtain a supply of ready money, his first being that of a pilgrim on the journey to Rome. Afterwards he travelled through Germany, Brabant, and Flanders in the character of a Japanese convert. At Liége he enlisted in the Dutch service, shortly after which he altered his character to that of an unconverted Japanese. At Sluys he made the acquaintance of a Scotch chaplain, by whom he was brought over to England and introduced to the bishop of London. Having undergone conversion PRYTANIS (pl. prytaneis) was the title of certain to Christianity, he was employed by the bishop to translate officials in Greek states. They appear to have succeeded the church catechism into what was supposed to be the the kings at the time when the monarchical form of Formosan language. In 1704 he published a fictitious government was abolished throughout Greece. At Rhodes Historical and Geographical Description of Formosa, and they continued to be the chief magistrates as late as the was shortly afterwards sent to complete his studies at the 1st century B.O., but in other states their functions dwindled. university of Oxford. The work of course was founded Though they were not priests, they had the charge of certain on previous publications, but the compilation was done public sacrifices. Their headquarters were in the "pryta- with great cleverness, in addition to which he printed a neum" or town-hall, the central point of a Greek state, where so-called Formosan alphabet, and specimens of the language a fire was kept perpetually burning on the public hearth. accompanied with translations. In 1707 he published When a colony was founded the fire in the prytaneum of Dialogue between a Japanese and a Formosan. There also the new city was kindled from the fire in the prytaneum appeared without date An Inquiry into the Objections of the mother-city, and if this colonial fire ever happened against George Psalmanazar of Formosa, with George to be extinguished it was rekindled from the same source. Psalmanazar's Answer. To add to his income he also At Athens in classical times the prytaneis were those fifty joined another person in promoting the sale of a sort of members of the council of five hundred who presided at white japan, the art of painting which he professed to the council meetings as well as at the popular assemblies. have brought from Formosa. His pretensions were from They consisted of the fifty members who represented one the beginning doubted by many, and when exposure was of the ten tribes on the council. The office was held for inevitable he made a full confession of his guilt. Througha tenth of a year and passed in rotation to the representa- out the rest of his life he not only exhibited a seemingly tives of each of the ten tribes. During their term of office conscientious regard for truth but according to Dr Samuel the prytaneis were maintained at the public expense in Johnson, as reported by Mrs Piozzi, "a piety, penitence, and the tholos or rotunda (not, as is sometimes stated, in the virtue exceeding almost what we read as wonderful in the prytaneum). As the highest mark of honour, distinguished lives of the saints." Dr Johnson used to discuss theocitizens and their descendants were sometimes maintained logical and literary matters with him in an alehouse in for life in the prytaneum. Here, too, ambassadors were the city, and cherished so high an opinion of his character entertained. There was further a court of justice at Athens and talents that he asserted he would "as soon think of called the "court in the prytaneum"; it tried murderers contradicting a bishop." Psalmanazar obtained a comfortwho were not to be found, and also lifeless instruments | able living by writing for the booksellers. He published

Polimer's

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