pnugues/EB7 huggingface dataset:
PICKETS, in fortification, are stakes sharpened at one end, and sometimes shod with iron, being used in laying out the ground. They are about three feet in length, but when used for pinning the fascines of a battery they are made from three to five feet in length.

Pickets, in artillery, are about five or six feet in length, and shod with iron, being used to pin the lines, in laying out the boundaries of the park.

Pickets, in the camp, are also stakes of about six or eight inches in length, being used to fasten the tent cords in pitching the tents; also stakes of about four or five feet in length, driven into the ground near the tents of the cavalry, to tie the horses to.
PICO, one of the Azores, is so called from some lofty mountains on the island; or rather from one very high mountain, terminating, like Teneriffe, in a peak, and reputed by some writers to be equal to it in height See Azores.
PICTET, Benedict, a celebrated divine, descended of a distinguished family. He was born at Geneva in 1655; prosecuted his studies with great success; and after having travelled into Holland and England, he taught theology in his own country, with an extraordinary reputation. The university of Leyden, after the death of Spantreina, solicited him to come and fill the place of that eminent person; but he thought that his own country had the best right to his services, and for this generosity on his part he received its thanks through the members of council. A languishing disorder, occasioned by excessive fatigue, hastened his death, which happened on the 9th of June 1724, at the age of sixty-nine years. This minister had much sweetness and affability in his manner; and the poor found in him a comforter and a friend. He published in Latin and French a great number of works, which are much esteemed in Protestant countries. The principal of these are, 1. A System of Christian Theology, in Latin, in three vols. 4to, the best edition of which is that of 1721; 2. Christian Morality, printed at Geneva, 1710, in eight vols. 12mo; 3. the History of the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries, intended as a sequel to that of Sueur, printed in 1713, in two vols. 4to,∙ 4. Several controversial treatises; 5. A great number of tracts on morality and piety, amongst which we must distinguish the Art of Living and Dying Well, published at Geneva, 1705, in 12mo; 6. Some Letters; 7. Sermons, from 1697 to 1721, in four vols. 8vo; with a vast number of other pieces, the names of which it would be tedious to inention, but which, as Μ. Sennebier says, “all show evident marks of piety and good sense.”
PICTOU. See Nova Scotia.
PICTURE, a piece of painting, or a subject,represented in colours, on wood, canvass, paper, or some other substance. See Painting. »· > l ∙⅛∕
PICTURESQUE literallysignifies that which is capable of, or fitted for, pictural delineation. Picturesque beauty, says an able writer on that subject, refers to such beautiful objects as are suited to the pencil. This epithet is chiefly applied to the works of nature, though it will often apply also to works of art. Those objects are most properly denominated picturesque which are disposed by the hand of nature with a mixture of varied rudeness, simplicity, and grandeur. A plain neat garden, with little variation in its plan, and no striking grandeur in its position, displays too much of art, design, and uniformity, to be called picturesque. “The ideas of neat and smooth,” says Mr Gilpin, “instead of being picturesque, in fact disqualify the object in which they reside from any pretensions to picturesque beauty. Nay, farther, we do not scruple to assert, that roughness forms the most essential point of difference between the beautiful and the picturesque; as it seems to be that particular quality which makes objects chiefly pleasing in painting. 1 use the general term roughness ; but, properly speaking, roughness relates only to the surfaces of bodies; when we speak of their delineation, we use the word ruggedness. Both ideas, however, equally enter into the picturesque, and both are observable in the smaller as well as in the larger parts of nature; in the outline and bark of a tree, as in the rude summit and craggy* sides of a mountain.” »
PICUMNUS and Pilumnus were two Roman deities, who presided over the auspices required before the celebration of nuptials. Pilumnus was supposed to patronize children, as his name seems in some manner to indicate, “quod pellat mala infantiae.” The manuring of the land was first invented by Picumnus, for which reason he is also called Sterqzulinizes. Pilumnus was also invoked as the god of bakers and millers, because he was said to have first invented the art of grinding corn.
PIEDMONT, or Piemont, a principality and principal province of the continental states of the Sardinian monarchy, forming the north-western portion of Italy. It was separated from Sardinia by the French in the year 1798, and in 1802 incorporated with France. On the fall of Napoleon in 1814 it was restored to the king of Sardinia, and the duchies of Milan and Montferrat have been annexed to it. It is now divided into twenty-six districts. Piedmont, in a narrower sense, borders on the Valais and Savoy to the north, on France to the west, on Nice and Genoa to the south, and on the Sardinian Milanese and Montferrat to the east. These limits comprise an area of 6575 square miles, and contain a population of 1,400,000 souls. If we include the Sardinian Milanese and Montferrat, its superficial extent is above 12,000 square miles, [7:17:741]and the inhabitants amount to 2,322,000. It forms a continuation of the plain of Lombardy, somewhat narrowed, and-more closely bounded by the mightiest ranges of the Alps and Apennines; the former on the north and west, the latter on the south. The principal river is the Po, which runs through its centre, dividing it into two nearly equal parts; and it receives here, nearly all its early tributaries, which, from being in the vicinity of their mountain sources, are liable to sudden and destructive inundations. The climate, of course, varies according .to the elevation of the surface. In the mountainous regions in the north and west the snow and ice remain during a great portion of the year. In the plains the climate is temperate during winter, and the excessive heats of summer are tempered by the vicinity of the Alps. The soil generally· is very fertile, the plains traversed by the Po being particularly prolific, and in a high state of cultivation. They yield in abundance corn, wine, oil, fruits, rice, and hemp. But the staple product is silk, the breeding of<the silk-worm being nowhere in Italy carried to the same extent; and the produce is also reckoned the finest in quality. It produces yearly 22,000,000 lire worth of silk, most of which is exported in the raw state. Another important branch of industry is the breeding of cattle, the pastures being both extensive and rich. The hills are in general covered with vineyards, the produce of which is very abundant, but generally of inferior quality. Olives, almonds, chestnuts, and in smaller quantities figs, oranges, and lemons, are raised here. The northern, western, and southern districts supply the central region with wood. The Piedmontese are industrious and frugal, and are all Catholics, with the exception of about 20,000 Waldenses and a few Jews. They have Some silk, linen, and woollen manufactures, and thousands of them are seen travelling about Italy, France, and Germany as pedlars. The capital of Piedmont is Turin. This province derives its name from its situation at the foot of the mountains.
PIEDMONTE, a town of Italy, in the province Terra di Lavoro, and the kingdom of Naples. It is situated at the foot of the mountain Matese, and has wide streets, well-built houses, seven churches, a hospital, and 4640 inhabitants, who make woollen cloths, paper, and iron ware.
PIER, in building, denotes a mass of stone, opposed by way of fortress to the force of the sea or a great river, for the security of ships which lie at harbour in any haven.
PIERCY Island, a small island near the east coast of New Zealand, a little to the .east of Cape Brett.
PIERHEAD, a promontory on the north-east coast of New Holland, and the west point of Thirsty Sound.
PIERIDES, in fabulous history, the daughters of Pierus, a Macedonian prince, who, presuming to dispute with the muses for the prize of poetry, were turned into magpies. The name of Pierides was also given to the muses, from Mount Pieris in Thessaly, which was consecrated to them; or, according to others, from Pieris, a Thessalian poet, who was the first who sacrificed to them.
PIERINO del Vaga, an eminent Italian painter, the son of poor parents, and a native of Tuscany, was born about the year 1500. He was placed apprentice with a grocer in Florence, and got some instructions from the painters to whom he was sent with colours and pencils; but an artist named Vaga taking him to Rome, he was called Del Vaga, from living with him, his real name being Buonacorsi. He studied anatomy and the other sciences necessary for his profession, and had somewhat of everything that was good in his compositions. After Raffaelle’s death, he united with Julio Romano and Francisco Penni in finishing the works in the Vatican which were left imperfect by their common master; and, to confirm their friendship, he married Penni’s sister. He gained the highest reputation by his performances in the palace of Prince Doria at Genoa; but the multiplicity of his occupations, and the vivacity of his imagination, exhausted his spirits in the flower of his age; and he died in the year 1547.
PIETISTS, a religious sect which sprung up amongst the Protestants of Germany, being a kind of mean between the Quakers of England and the Q,uietists of the Catholic church. They despised all sorts of ecclesiastical polity, all scholastic divinity, and all forms and ceremonies, and gave themselves up to contemplation and a mystic theology. Many gross errors are charged on the Pietists, in a book entitled Manipulus Observationum Antipietisti-carum; but these have much of the air of polemical exaggeration, and are certainly not at all just. Indeed there are Pietists of various kinds; some running into gross illusions, and carrying their errors to the overturning of the greater part of Christian doctrine, whilst others are only visionaries, and a few are very honest and good, though perhaps misguided, people. Having become disgusted with the coldness and formality of other churches, they were charmed with the fervent piety of the Pietists, and attached to their party, withoutgiving in to the grossest of their errors.
PIETRA Mala, a market-town of Italy, in the vicariate of Firenzuolo, and the grand duchy of Tuscany. It stands on the great road from Florence to Bologna, twenty-four miles to the north-west of the former city. It is remarkable from its vicinity, to the mountain Raticoa, from which there issues constantly, on some parts of its surface, a flame, which does not produce those effects that commonly arise from volcanic eruptions. It burns both clear and bright, rises several feet above the earth, and is visible at a considerable distance. Various opinions and conjectures have been formed by naturalists concerning the causes and nature of this phenomenon, but none has been considered as satisfactory.
PIETRA Percia, a town of the island of éicily, in the intendancy of Calatinata, and district of Noto. It is situated on a steep inland mountain, near the river Salso, seventy-four miles from Palermo, and is a healthy place, containing 8290 inhabitants.
PIETRI de Fusι, a town of Italy, in the province Prin~ cipato Ulteriore, and the kingdom of Naples. It contains 4890 inhabitants, who grow some excellent wine.
PIETY is a virtue which denotes veneration for the Deity, and love and tenderness to our friends. This distinguished virtue, like many others, received amongst the Romans divine honours, and was made one of their gods. Acilius Glabrio first erected a temple to this divinity, which he built upon the spot on which a woman had fed with her own milk her aged father, who had been imprisoned by order of the senate, and deprived of all aliments.
PIGEON. See Ornithology. Pigeon Island, in Dusky Bay, New Zealand, a little to the south of Facile Harbour. This is also the name of another island in the Eastern Seas, near the coast of Canara. Long. 74. 5. E. Lat. 14. 2. N.
PIKE. See Ichthyology.
PILATRE de Rozier, Francis, was born at Metz on the 30th of March 1756. He was first apprentice to an apothecary there, and afterwards went to Paris in quest of further improvement. He applied himself to the study of natural history and physics, and had already acquired some reputation, when the discovery of Montgolfier astonished the learned world. On the 25th of October 1783, he attempted an aerial voyage, accompanied by the Marquis of Arlande. He performed several other excursions in this way with brilliant success, in the presence of the royal family of France, of the king of Sweden, and of Prince Henry of Prussia. He then resolved to pass into England by means of his aerial vehicle, and for that purpose he repaired to [7:17:743]Boulogne, whence he rose about seven o’clock in the morning on the 15th of June 1785; but in half an hour after he set out, the balloon took fire, and the aeronaut, with his companion Μ. Romaine, were crushed to death by the fall of the machine. See Aeronautics.
PILCHARD. See Ichthyology.
PILE, in Heraldry, an ordinary in the form of a wedge, contracting from the chief, and terminating in a point towards the bottom of the shield.

Pile, amongst the Greeks and Romans, was a pyramid built of wood, upon which were laid the bodies of the deceased, to be burned. It was partly in the form of an altar, and differed in height according to the quality of the person to be consumed. Probably it might originally have been considered as an altar, upon which the dead were consumed as a burnt-offering to the infernal deities. The trees made use of in the erection of a funeral pile were such as abounded in pitch or rosin, and consequently were most combustible; if they used any other wood, it was split that it might the more easily catch fire. Round the pile were placed cypress boughs, to prevent the noisome smell.

Pile, in building, means a large stake rammed into the ground in the bottom of rivers, or in marshy land, for a foundation to build upon.

Pile is also a term amongst architects, signifying a mass of building.

Pile- Engine, a machine for driving the piles upon which the piers of bridges are founded. See Mechanics.
PILEUS, in Roman antiquity, was the ordinary cap or hat worn by the freedmen at public shows and sacrifices. It was one of the common rewards assigned to such gladiators as were slaves, in token of their obtaining freedom.
PILGRIM, one who travels through foreign countries to visit holy places, and to pay his devotion to the relics of saints. The word is formed from the Flemish pelgrim, or the Italian pelegrino, which signifies the same; and these were originally formed from the Latin peregrinus, a stranger or traveller.
PILGRIMAGE, a kind of religious discipline, which consists in taking a journey to some holy place in order to pray before the relics of some saint. Pilgrimages began to be made about the middle ages of the church; but they were most in vogue after the end of the eleventh century, when every one was smitten with a desire of visiting places of devotion, not excepting kings and princes themselves; and even bishops made no difficulty of being absent from their churches on the same account.^[1. It deserves to be remarked here that in the year 1428, under the reignf Henry VI. abundance of licenses were granted by the crown of England to captains of English ships, for carrying numbers of devout persons to the shrine of St James of Compostelŭ, in Spain; provided, however, that those pilgrims should first take an oath nbt to carry with them any thing prejudicial to England, nor to reveal any of its secrets, nor to take out with them any more gold or silver than what should be sufficient for their reasonable expenses. In this year there went out from England, on the same pilgrimage, from London 280, Bristol 200, Wevmouth l ζ >2, Dartmouth 90, Yarmouth 60, Jersey 60, Plymouth 40, Exeter 30, Poole 24, Ipswich 20; in all 926 persons. ]

Dr Johnson, in his Rasselas, gives us some observations on pilgrimage, which are so much to the purpose that we think we cannot do better than lay them before our readers. “Pilgrimage, like many other acts of piety, may be reasonable or superstitious according to the principles upon which it is performed. Long journeys in search of truth are not commanded. Truth, such as is necessary to the regulation of life, is always found where it is honestly sought: change of place is no natural cause of the increase of piety, for it inevitably produces dissipation of mind. Yet since men go every day to view the fields where great actions have been performed, and return with stronger impressions of the event, curiosity of the same kind may naturally dispose us to view that country where our religion had its beginning; and I believe no man surveys those awful scenes∙without some confirmation of holy resolutions. That the Supreme Being may be more easily propitiated in one place than in another, is the dream of idle superstition; but that some places may operate upon our own minds in an uncommon manner, is an opinion which hourly experience will justify. He who supposes that his vices may be more successfully combated in Palestine, will perhaps find himself mistaken; yet he may go thither without folly: he who thinks they will be more freely pardoned, dishonours at once his reason and religion.”
PILKALLEN, a town of the province of East Prussia, and the capital of a circle of the same name, which extends over 410 square miles, and, in two cities and seven parishes, contains 22,100 inhabitants. The town is situated on a small river, and has 120 houses, with 1490 inhabitants. Long. 22. 54. 57. E. Lat. 54. 45. 19. N.
PILKINGTON, Laetitia, a sprightly and once noted writer, was the daughter of Dr Van Lewin, a physician of Dublin, where she was born in the year 1712. She was married when very young to the Rev. Matthew Pilkington, a poet of no inconsiderable merit; and the two wits, as is often the case, lived very unhappily together, and were at length totally separated. The story is told at large in her Memoirs. After this separation, Mrs Pilkington came to London, and lived for some time on the productions of her pen. She was, however, thrown into the Marshalsea for debt; and being set at liberty, opened a pamphlet shop. She at length raised a handsome subscription for her Memoirs, which are written with great sprightliness and wit; containing several anecdotes of Dean Swift, with whom she was intimate, as well as many pretty little pieces of her own poetry. This ingenious person died at Dublin in 1750.

Pilkington, a township in the parish of Prestwick, of the hundred of Salford, in Lancashire, 180 miles from London and four from Manchester. It is chiefly inhabited by cotton manufacturers. The population amounted in 1801 to 5786, in 1811 to 7353, in 1821 to 8976, and in 1831 to 11,006.
PILLAR, Cape, a high cape on the south-east coast of ' Van Diemen’s Land, on the north-eastern shore of Storm Bay. Long. 148. 8. E. Lat. 43. 12. S.
PILLARS, in antiquarian topography, are large single stones set up perpendicularly. Tliose of them which are found in this country were the work of the Druids; but as they are the most simple of all monuments, they are unquestionably more ancient than even Druidism itself. They were placed as memorials recording different events; as remarkable instances of God’s mercies, of contracts, singular victories, boundaries, and sometimes sepulchres. Various instances of these monuments erected by the patriarchs occur in the Old Testament. Such was that raised by Jacob at Luz, afterwards by him named Bethel; and such also was the pillar placed by him over the grave of Rachel. They were likewise marks of execrations and magical talismans. These stones, from having long been considered as objects of veneration, were at length idolatrously worshipped by the ignorant and superstitious; wherefore, after the introduction of Christianity, some had crosses cut upon them, which was considered as taking them out of the category of works devoted to the service of the devil. Vulgar superstition of a later date has led the common people to regard them as persons transformed into stone for the punishment of some crime, generally that of sabbath-breaking. This notion, however, is not confined to single stones, but is also told of whole circles; as the monuments called [7:17:744]the hurlers in Cornwall, and Polloric stones in Warwickshire. The former are by the vulgar supposed to bave once been men, who were thus transformed as a punishment for playing on the Lord’s day at a game called hurling ; the latter are believed to consist of a pagan king and his army.
PILLAU, a city of the province of East Prussia, in the circle of Fischausen. It stands on a tongue of land on the bank of a strait by which the Frisch Haff is connected with the Baltic Sea. It is regularly fortified, and defended by a fortress. The harbour is secure, and admits ships of 200 tons burden, and about 1000 vessels yearly enter and depart. It contains about 200 very large and anciently-fashioned houses, with 3600 inhabitants. It has considerable trade in ship-building, in the fishery, in distilleries and breweries, in corn, and in timber. Long. 19. 48. 21. E. Lat. 54. 38. 18. N.
PILLERE, a small town of Hindustan, in the district of Gurrumcundah, ninety-five miles west-north-west from Madras. Long. 79. 5. É. Lat. 13. 32. N.
PILLIBEET, a town of Hindustan, in the province of Delhi, and district of Bareily. It was a great emporium of commerce in the time of Hafiz Rehmut. After the Rohilla country was laid waste by the nabob of Oude, its commerce was annihilated; but since its cession to the British it has greatly revived.
PILLORY {collistrigium, that is, collum stringens ; pillaria, from the French pilleur, meaning depeculator ; or ]]elori, derived from the Greek πυλη, janua, a door, because one standing on the pillory puts his head as it were through a door, and ogaω, video) is an engine made of wood, to punish offenders, by exposing them to public view, and rendering them infamous.
PILOT, an officer who superintends the navigation of a ship, squadron, or fleet, either upon the sea-coast or upon the main ocean. It is, however, more particularly applied by our mariners to the person charged with the direction of a ship’s course on or near the sea-coast, and into the roads, bays, rivers, havens, and creeks, within his respective district.
PILSEN, a city of the Austrian kingdom of Bohemia, the capital of a circle of the same name, which extends over 1474 square miles, comprehending fifteen cities, fourteen towns, 669 villages, and 28,500 houses. The city stands at the junction of the rivers Bradawta and Be-raunta, and contains 546 houses, and about 8000 inhabitants, who conduct some cloth manufactories, and considerable internal trade in hardware made from mines of iron in its neighbourhood. Near to them are also extensive alum works, both belonging to the city. The place is one of historical celebrity,from having been the scene of the insurrection of Wallenstein against the imperial government in the Thirty Years’ War. Long. 13.18.45. E. Lat. 49.44.38. N.