el, or the Assembly, a Poem," 1692 (1652-1713).

PITHOM, a town of Rameses, one of the treasure-cities built by the
children of Israel in Lower Egypt, now, as discovered by M. Naville,
reduced to a small village between Ismailia and Tel-el-Kebir.

PITMAN, SIR ISAAC, inventor of the shorthand system which bears his
name, born at Trowbridge, Wiltshire; his first publication was
"Stenographic Sound-Hand" in 1837, and in 1842 he started the _Phonetic
Journal_, and lectured extensively as well as published in connection
with his system (1813-1897).

PITRE, GIUSEPPE, eminent Italian folk-lorist, born at Palermo, after
serving as a volunteer in 1860 under Garibaldi, and graduating in
medicine in 1866, threw himself into the study of literature, and soon
made the folk-lore of Italy, the special study of his life, and to which
he has devoted himself with unsparing assiduity, the fruits from time to
time appearing principally in two series of his works, one in 19 vols.
and another in 10 vols.; _b_. 1841.

PITRIS (i. e. Fathers), in the Hindu mythology an order of divine
beings, and equal to the greatest of the gods, who, by their sacrifice,
delivered the world from chaos, gave birth to the sun and kindled the
stars, and in whose company the dead, who have like them lived
self-sacrificingly, enter when they lay aside mortality. See Rev. vii.
14.

PITACOTTIE, ROBERT LINDSAY OF, proprietor in the 16th century of the
Fifeshire estate name of which he bore, was the author of "The Chronicles
of Scotland," to which Sir Walter Scott owed so much; his work is quaint,
graphic, and, on the whole, trustworthy.

PITT, WILLIAM. See CHATHAM, EARL OF.

PITT, WILLIAM, English statesman, second son of Lord Chatham, born
near Bromley, Kent, grew up a delicate child in a highly-charged
political atmosphere, and studied with such diligence under the direction
of his father and a tutor that he entered Cambridge at 14; called to the
bar in 1780, he speedily threw himself into politics, and contested
Cambridge University in the election of 1781; though defeated, he took
his seat for the pocket burgh of Appleby, joined the Shelburne Tories in
opposition to North's ministry, and was soon a leader in the House; he
supported, but refused to join, the Rockingham Ministry of 1782,
contracted his long friendship with Dundas, afterwards Viscount Melville,
and became an advocate of parliamentary reform; his first office was
Chancellor of th