uthority; he was salaried, and
annually elected to the office by the council, and had to give an account
of his administration at the end of his term.

PODIEBRAD, GEORGE, king of Bohemia; rose, though a Hussite, and in
spite of the Pope, from the ranks of the nobles to that elevation; forced
his enemies to come to terms with him, and held his ground against them
till the day of his death (1420-1471).

POE, EDGAR ALLAN, an American poet, born in Boston, Massachusetts; a
youth of wonderful genius, but of reckless habits, and who came to an
unhappy and untimely end; left behind him tales and poems, which, though
they were not appreciated when he lived, have received the recognition
they deserve since his death; his poetical masterpiece, "The Raven," is
well known; died at Baltimore of inflammation of the brain, insensible
from which he was picked up in a street one evening (1809-1849).

POERIO, CARLO, Italian patriot; was conspicuous in the revolutionary
movement of 1848; was arrested and banished, but escaped to England,
where he was received with sympathy by Mr. Gladstone among others; he
rose into power on the establishment of the kingdom of Italy (1803-1867).

POET LAUREATE, the English court poet, an office which dates from
the reign of Edward IV., the duty of the holder of it being originally to
write an ode on the birthday of the monarch.

POETICAL JUSTICE, ideal justice as administered in their writings by
the poets.

POETRY, the gift of penetrating into the inner soul or secret of a
thing, and bodying it forth rhythmically so as to captivate the
imagination and the heart.

POET'S CORNER, a corner in the SW. transept of Westminster Abbey, so
called as containing the tombs of Chaucer, Spenser, and other eminent
English poets.

POGGENDORF, JOHANN CHRISTIAN, a German physicist and chemist, born
at Hamburg; professor of Physics at Berlin; was the editor for more than
half a century of the famous _Annalen der Physik und Chimie_, and the
author of numerous papers (1796-1877).

POGGIO, BRACCIOLINI, an Italian scholar, born in Florence, was a
distinguished humanist, and devoted to the revival of classical learning,
collecting MSS. of the classics wherever he could find them that might
otherwise have been lost, including Quintilian's "Institutions," great
part of Lucretius, and several orations of Cicero, &c.; wrote a "History
of Florence," where he died; he was the author of a collection of stor