Helicon, and everything was motionless to hear their song, save Helicon, which rose ever higher and higher in its delight, when Pegasus put a stop to this with a kick of his hoof, and from the point arose Hippocrene, the inspiring spring of the Muses. But that Pegasus is the horse of the Muses is entirely a modern idea, be- ing first found in the Orlando Innamorato of Boiardb. — Chambers, Cyclop, s. v.
Pegge, Samuel, LL.D., F.A.S., an eminent English divine, noted especially as an industrious antiquarian, was born at Chesterfield, Staffordshire, in 1704. He was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, of which he became fellow in 1726. He became vicar of God- mersham, Kent, in 1731 ; and rector of Whittington, Staffordshire, in 1751. He was also rector of Heath, perpetual curate of Wingcrworth, and prebendary of Lichfield and of Lincoln. He died in 1706. He pub- lished. An Examination of the Inquiry into the Meaning of Dcemoniacs in the New Testament. In a Letter to the Author. Wherein it is shmrn that the word Dcemon does not signify a Departed Soul, either in the Classics or the. Scriptures ; and, consequently, that the whole of the In- quiry is without Foundation (Lond. 1739) : — Popery, an Encourager of Vice and Irnmorcdity ; a sermon on Isa. V. 20 [on occasion of rebellion] (ibid. 174C, 8vo) : — The Life of Robert Groteste, the celebrated Bishop of Lincoln, with an A cconnt of the Bishopi's Worlcs, and an Appendix (ibid. 1793, 4to). Other works of his are. Dissertations 071 some Anglo-Saxon Remains (ibid. 1756, 4to) : — Me- moirs of Roger de Weseham (ibid. 1761, 4to) : — Essay on the Coins of Cunobelin (ibid. 1766, 4to) : — The Forme of Cury (ibid. 1780, 8vo) : — Anonymianu (ibid. 1809), etc. See DarVwg, Cyclop, of Bibliog. s. v.; (London) Gentle- man's Magazine, 1796. pt. ii, p. 66 sq. ; Nichol, Literary Anecdotes, vii, 1813-1816.
Pehlevi (Valor, Power) is the name of an ancient West-Iranian (Median and Persian) idiom, in use chiefly during flie period of the Sassanida3 (A.D. 235-040), who, wisliing fully to restore the ancient Persian em- pire, endeavored also to reinstate the primitive national language, fallen into disuse as a court-language since the time of Alexander's conquest. Yet they did not fix upon the pure Persian as it was still spoken in the interior, but upon the dialect of the western provinces, largeh' mixed with Shemitic words, to which Aryan ter- minations were affixed. The grammatical structure of the Pehlevi presents almost the same poverty of inflec- tions and terminations as the present Persian. Al- though, however, less rich than Zend (q. v.) in inflec- tion and accentuation, it yet boasts of the same copi- ousness of words as that dialect, to which it in reality succeeded. It is written from right to left, and the let- ters are mostly joined. The remnants of Pehlevi ex- tant consist of coins, inscriptions (found at Hajiabad, Persepolis, Kirmanshah, etc.), and a number of books, all relating to the religion of Zoroaster. The most im- portant of these are the translation of the chief part of the Zend-Avesta (Yazna, Visparad, and Yendidad), and such original religious works as the Bundehesh, Shikand- gumani, Dinkart, Atash Baram, etc. The Pehlevi of the books differs from that of the inscriptions and coins to such a degree — according to the larger or smaller pre- ponderance of the Shemitic element — as to have misled investigators (Westergaard and others) to assume that two utterly distinct languages, a purely Iranic and a She- mitic one, had been used somewhat indiscriminately at the time. The non-Iranian element is called Huzvaresh (Huzilrcsh) by the Parsee priests, who, taking advan- tage of the ambiguity of the Pehlevi alphabet, often substitute the corresponding Persian for the foreign words. The Iranian part of the Pehlevi differs little from the Persian of our own day, and, in fact, the Peh- levi changed first into Parsee, and subsequently into modern Persian, simply by getting rid first of its Chal- dee and then of those of its Iranian words which had become obsolete. The chief use of the Pehlevi dialect
PEIRCE
866
PEKAH
at present is the assistance it oflFers towartls the eluci- dation of the Zend itself. See Persia.
Peirce, Cyrus, a Congregational minister, noted as an American educator, was born at Waltham, Mass., Aug. 15, 1700. lie was educated at Harvard Univer- sity, where he graduated in 1810. He taught a private school in Nantucket two years; then studied theology at Cambridge three years, and resumed his school at Nantucket. He commenced preaching in 1818; was minister of a Congregational Church at North Heading from Jlay, 1819, to May, 1827, but, preferring the voca- tion of a teacher, opened a school at North Andover; from 1830 to 1836 he managed a large school at Nan- tucket; became principal of its high school in 1837; and from 1839 to 18-1:2 was principal of the first Normal School in America, at Lexington, j\Iass. After two years of rest he took charge of the Female Normal School at West Newton, where he continued till his death. He published A Letter on Normal Schools, ad- dressed to the Hon. Henry Barnard (1851), and a prize essay on Crime, its Cause and Cure (1853). He died April 5, 1860. See National Teachers' Monthly, Sept. 1875, p. 325 sq. ; Barnard's American Journal of Edu- cation, December, 1857.