Prytaneum {irpvTavtioi>) was the common house of an ancient Greek city or state in which a sacred tire was kept constantly burning in honor of Vesta. It was an appropriate building, where, in the name of the city or state, the magistrates, known as the Pry tanes, brought suitable offerings to the venerated goddess. The rire- service observed in honor of Vesta was distinguished by the name of Prytanistis. The temple which was called prytaneum was of a round form, in order, as some have supposed, to represent the figure of the earth, and, ac- cording to others, to represent the centre of the universe. Plutarch thus speaks on the subject : " It is also said that Numa built the temple of Vesta, where the perpetual fire was to be kept, in an orbicular form, not intending to represent the figure of the earth, as if that was meant by Vesta, but the frame of the universe, in the centre of which the Pythagoreans place the element of fire, and give it the name of Vesta and Unity. The earth they suppose not to be without motion, nor situated in the centre of the world, but to make its revolution round the sphere of fire, being neither one of the most valuable nor principal parts of the great machine. Plato, too, in his old age, is reported to have been of the same opinion, assigning the earth a different situation from the centre, and leaving that, as the place of honor, to a nobler element." If the sacred tire in the prytaneum was accidentally extinguished, or even if it continued burning, the vestal virgins invariably renewed it every year on the calends of March by collecting the solar rays in a concave vessel of brass. From the fire which was kept burning in the prytaneum of the parent state, the sacred fire was supplied to each of its colonics or dependent states. Thucydides states that, before the time of Theseus, a prytaneum was to be found in every city or state of Attica. The prytaneum of Athens was originally built on the Acropolis, but afterwards it. stood near the agora, or forum. — ( lardner, Faiths of the. World, s. v. See Smith, Diet, of Class. Antiq. s. v. Psalm. See Psalmody ; Psalms, Book of. Psalmanazar, George, a remarkable impostor in the religious and literary world, was born, probably, in the year 1680, and was of French origin. He received
PSALMISTER
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PSALMODY
his education partly in a free school taught by two Franciscan monks, and afterwards in a college of Jes- uits in an archiepiscopal city, the name of which, as also thai of his birthplace and of his parents, remains unknown. Upon leaving the college, he was recom- j metaded as a tutor to a young gentleman, bui soon I'll into a mean. rambling kind of life that produced in him plenty of disappointments ami misfortunes. The first pretence lie took up with was that of being a suf- ferer for religion; and he procured a certificate thai he was of Erish extraction, had hit the country for the sake of the Roman Catholic religion, and was going on a pilgrimage to Rome. Not being in a condition t<> purchase a pilgrim's garb, he had observed, in a chapel dedicated to a miraculous saint, that such a one had been set up as a monument of gratitude by - i wan- dering pilgrim; and he contrived to take both staff and cloak away at noonday. "Being thus accoutred," -ays he -and furnished with a pass, I began, at all proper places, i" I"-:: my way in a fluent Latin, accosting only clergymen or persons of figure, by whom I could he un- derstood, and found them Stlj SO generous ami cred- ulous that I might easily have saved money and pul myself into a much better dress before I had gone through a score or two of mile-." His next trick was to impose on men in the Ljarh of a soldier, menial pre- ceptor, beggar, or vagrant nondescript, living on his v. \[> as he could, according to the whim or necessity of the hour. In the course of his wanderings, he was thrown into the companionship of a colonel Lauder at Siu\-. io whom he gave himself out. under I he name by which he is so celebrated, representing himself as a Japanese convert to Christianity, and native of the isl- and of Formosa. The chaplain of the regiment took Psalmanazar to England, and he instantly became the religious lion of the day. his patron (who was a man equally acute and unprincipled) skilfully availing him- self of the connection to secure for himself preferment in the Church. Different ecclesiastical dignitaries con- tended for i hi' honor of being serviceable to him; and through the influence of the bishop of < >xford, apartments were assigned him at the university, in order that he might prosecute his Btudies there. The talent, ingenu- ity, and resource which he displayed in keeping up the deception go far to account for what may seem to us the strange credulity with which his story was received. lie published, in Latin, a fabulous account of I he island of Formosa, the consistency and verisimilitude of which imposed upon the learned world, lie also invented a language, compact and somewhat complex in structure. and was able, in virtue of a memory no! less than aston- ishing, to defy the ordinary methods of detection. In the midst of his success, however, at the age of about thirty-two, he became the subject of religious impres- sion-, and his conscience awoke to the ignominy of the deceit which he was practicing. Urged by whal seems to have been a genuine feeling of penitence, he with- drew himself from public notice, and for the rest of his long life honorably earned hi- livelihood by literature, in which he had a moderate success. Besides much assiduous compilation for the booksellers, of history, geography, and the like, he published several works anonymously, one of which, . I« Essay on Miracles, % u . was for some time exceedingly popular, and another a version of the I'salms. On his death in Lon- don in 1762, it was found that he had also busied him- seli'in preparing for posthumous publication an account of hi- curious career, which, under the title Memoirs