conceded to the latter, and
stood to them as patrons to clients, like the baron of the Middle Ages to
the vassals. This inequality gave rise to repeated and often protracted
struggles in the commonalty, during which the latter gradually encroached
on the rights of the former till the barrier in civic status, and even in
social to some extent, was as good as abolished, and members of the
plebeian class were eligible to the highest offices and dignities of the
State.

PATRICK, ORDER OF ST., an Irish order of knighthood, founded in 1783
by George III., comprising the sovereign, the Lord-Lieutenant, and
twenty-two knights, and indicated by the initial letters K.P.

PATRICK, ST., the apostle and patron saint of Ireland; his
birthplace uncertain; flourished in the 5th century; his mission, which
extended over great part of Ireland, and over thirty or forty years of
time, was eminently successful, and at the end of it he was buried in
Downpatrick, henceforth a spot regarded as a sacred one. Various miracles
are ascribed to him, and among the number the extirpation from the soil
of all venomous reptiles.

PATRICK, SIMON, English prelate; distinguished himself, when he was
rector of St. Paul's, by his self-denying devotion during the Plague of
London; became bishop in succession of Chichester and Ely, and was the
author of a number of expository works (1652-1707).

PATRISTIC LITERATURE, the name given to the writings of the early
Fathers of the Christian Church.

PATROCLUS, a friend of Achilles, who accompanied him to the Trojan
War, and whose death by the hand of Hector roused Achilles out of his
sullenness, and provoked him to avenge the deed in the death of Hector.

PATTESON, JOHN COLERIDGE, bishop of Melanesia, grand-nephew of
Coleridge; a devoted bishop, in material things no less than spiritual,
among the Melanesian islanders; was murdered, presumably through mistake,
by the natives of one of the Santa Cruz groups (1827-1871).

PATTI, ADELINA, prima donna, born in Madrid, of Italian extraction;
made her first appearance at New York in 1859, and in London at Covent
Garden, as Amina in "La Somnambula," in 1861, and has since made the
round once and again of the Continent and America, North and South; has
been married three times, being divorced by her first husband, and lives
at Craig-y-nos Castle, near Swansea, Wales; _b_. 1843.

PATTISON, MARK, a distinguished English scholar, born at Hornby,
York