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PERCEPTION is a word which is so well understood that it is difficult for the lexicographer to give any explanation of it. It has been called the first and most simple act of the mind, by which it is conscious of its own ideas. This definition, however, is improper, as it confounds perception with consciousness; although the objects of the former faculty are things without us, those of the latter the energies of our own minds. Perception is that power or faculty, by which, through the medium of the senses, we have the cognizance of objects distinct and apart from ourselves, and learn that we are but a small part in the system of nature. By what process the senses give us this information is one of the most interesting enquiries in metaphysics. See META

PHYSICS.

PERCEVAL (Spencer), second son of John, second earl of Egmont, was born in 1762, and received his education at Harrow, and Trinity College, Cambridge, of which he became a member about the year 1775. On quitting the university he entered of Lincoln's Inn, with the view of following the profession of the law at the Chancery bar. In this pursuit he soon distinguished himself, and obtained a silk gown. In 1796 he represented Northampton in parliament, and, five years after, his legal abilities and family influence raised him to the office of solicitorgeneral. In 1802 he was made attorney-general, and filled that situation till 1807, when, on the death of Mr. Fox, he was appointed chancellor of the exchequer. In this high post he continued till the 11th of May, 1812, when, while approaching the door of the house of commons, a person named Bellingham discharged a pistol at him in the lobby, the bullet of which, entering his breast, deprived him almost instantly of life. The assassin avowed that he had been waiting with the view of destroying lord Leveson Gower, late ambassador to the court of St. Petersburgh, for some alleged negligence of his mercantile interests, and was brought to trial on the 15th. Although a plea of insanity was set up by his counsel, he was found guilty, and executed on the 18th of the same month.

PERCH, n. s., v. n., & v. a. Fr. perche, percher; Lat. pertica. A rod; measure; that on which birds sit and roost: to sit or roost; place on a perch.

He percheth on some branch thereby,
To weather him and his moist wings to dry.

Spenser.
The world is grown so bad,
That wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch.
Shakspeare.
The morning muses perch like birds and sing
Among his branches.
Crashaw.

An evening dragon came,

Assailant on the perched roosts,

VOL. XVII-PART 1.

And nests in order ranged Of some villatic fowl. Milton's Agonistes. Glory, like the dazzling eagle, stood Perched on my beaver in the Granic flood; When fortune's self my standard trembling bore And the pale fates stood frighted on the shore.

Lee.

Dryden.

For the narrow perch I cannot ride. They winged their flight aloft, then, stooping low, Perched on the double tree, that bears the golden bough.

Id. Let owls keep close within the tree, and not perch upon the upper boughs. South.

PERCH, n.s. Fr. perche; Lat. perca. A fish.

The perch is one of the fishes of prey, that, like the pike and trout, carries his teeth in his mouth: he dare venture to kill and destroy several other kinds of fish he has a hooked or hog-back, which is armed with stiff bristles, and all his skin armed with thick hard scales, and hath two fins on his back: he spawns but once a year, and is held very nutritive. Walton's Angler.

PERCH, in ichthyology. See PERCA. PERCHANCE', adv. Per and chance. Perhaps; peradventure.

How long within this wood intend you stay? -Perchance till after Theseus' wedding day. Shakspeare.

Finding him by nature little studious, she chose rather to endue him with ornaments of youth; as dancing and fencing, not without aim then perchance at a courtier's life.

Wotton.

Perchance thy worldly wealth sunk with yon wreck— Such wound my gold can heal.

Maturin.

PERCIVAL (Thomas), M. D., a physician, born at Warrington, Lancashire, in 1740, studied medicine at the universities of Edinburgh and Leyden, and returning to England, in 1765, settled at Manchester. He was the author of a variety of numerous able tracts on scientific subjects, especially Observations on the Deleterious Qualities of Lead and Medical Ethics; A Father's Instructions to his Children; Moral and Literary Dissertations, &c.; and papers in the Transactions of the Manchester Philosophical Society, of which he was the founder and first president. He also attempted to establish public lectures on mather aatics, the fine arts, and commerce, in that town; and sought to obtain support for dissenting academies at Warrington and Manchester, but was in both these last attempts unsuccessful. Dr. Percival died, highly respected both for talents and conduct, on the 30th of August, 1804. His works were published in 1807, in 4 vols. 8vo. by his son. B

Ray.

Το

PERCUSS', v. a. Lat. percussio. PERCUSSION, n. s. strike: the act of strikPERCUTIENT, adj. ing; effect of sounds striking the ear: percutient being the corresponding adjective.

With thy grim looks, and The thunder-like percussion of thy sounds, Thou mad'st thine enemies shake. Shakspeare. Flame percussed by air giveth a noise; as in blowing the fire by bellows; and so likewise flame percussing the air strongly. Bacon.

Some note, that the times when the stroke or percussion of an envious eye doth most hurt are when the party envied is beheld in glory. Id.

Inequality of sounds is accidental, either from the roughness or obliquity of the passage, or from the doubling of the percutient. ld.

In double rhymes the percussion is stronger.

Rymer.

The vibrations or tremors excited in the air by percussion continue a little time to move from the place of percussion in concentric spheres to great distances. Newton's Opticks.

Marbles taught him percussion and the laws of motion, and tops the centrifugal motion. Arbuthnot. PERCUSSION, in mechanics, the impression a body makes in falling or striking upon another; or the shock of two bodies in motion.

PERCY (Thomas), a learned prelate, related to the family of Northumberland, was born at Bridgenorth in Shropshire in 1728, and educated at Christ Church, Oxford, where he took his master's degree in 1753, and, on entering into orders, was presented to the vicarage of Easton Mauduit in Northamptonshire, which he held with the rectory of Wilby. In 1769 he was made chaplain to the king, in 1778 promoted to the deanery of Carlisle, and in 1782 advanced to the bishopric of Dromore in Ireland, where he died in 1811. His works are, 1. Han Kiou Chouan, a translation from the Chinese; 2. Chinese Miscellanies; 3. Five Pieces of Runic Poetry, translated from the Icelandic Language. 4. A new Translation of the Song of Solomon; 5. Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, 3 vols.; 6. A key to the New Testament; 7. The Northumberland Household Book; 8. The Hermit of Warkworth, a poem, in the ballad style; 9. A Translation of Mallet's Northern Antiquities. PERCY ISLES, a chain of islands in the South Pacific, near the north-east coast of New Holland. They extend from about lat. 21° 32' to 21° 45′ S., and are distant about thirty miles from the main land. They were visited by Flinders in 1802, who laid down their bearings, and gave them this

name of Percy Islands. The largest is about thirteen miles in circuit, and 1000 feet high. They are only occasionally visited by the Indians from the main land for turtle. The large vampyre bat was frequently found hanging by the claws, with its head downwards, under the palm

trees.

PERDICCAS I., II., and III., kings of Macedonia. See MACEDON.

PERDICIUM, in botany, a genus of the polygamia superflua order, belonging to the syngenesia class of plants; and in the natural method ranking under the forty-ninth order, compositæ. The receptacle is naked; the pappus is simple; the florets bilabiate.

PERDITION, n. s. Fr. perdition; ·Lat. perditio. Destruction; death: ruin; eternal death.

While I was with hem I kept hem in thi name, thilke that thou ghauest to me I kept, and noon of hem perisschide but the son of perdicioun.

Wiclif. Jon. xvii. 12. As life and death, mercy and wrath, are matters of knowledge, all men's salvation and some men's endless perdition are things so opposite that whoever doth affirm the one must necessarily deny the other. Hooker.

Upon tidings now arrived, importing the meer perdition of the Turkish fleet, every man puts himself Shakspeare. in triumph.

Men once fallen away from undoubted truth, do after wander for ever more in vices unknown, and daily travel towards their eternal perdition.

Raleigh's History.

We took ourselves for free men, seeing there was no danger of our utter perdition, and lived most joyfully, going abroad, and seeing what was to be seen.

Bacon.

Quick let us part! Perdition's in thy presence, And horror dwells about thee! Addison's Cato.

PERDIX, in ornithology, a genus of birds, belonging to the order of gallina, ranked by Linnæus along with the genus tetrao, or grous; but now very properly disjoined by Dr. Latham, and classed as a distinct genus, of which he describes the following characters :-The bill is convex, strong, and short; the nostrils are covered above with a callous prominent rim: the orbits are papillose; the feet naked; and most of the genus are furnished with spurs. There are fortyeight species, of which the two principal are the partridge and quail.

1. P. communis, the common partridge, is so well known, that a description of it is unnecessary, and we have not room to describe the foreign species. We refer those who wish complete information to Dr. Latham's valuable System of Ornithology. Partridges are found in every country and in every climate; as well in the frozen regions about the pole, as the torrid tracks under the equator. În Greenland, the partridge, which is brown in summer, as soon as the icy winter sets in, is clothed with a warm down beneath; and its outward plumage assumes the color of the snow among which it seeks its food. Those of Barakonda, on the other hand, are longer legged, much swifter of foot, and choose the highest rocks and precipices to reside in. They all, however, agree in one character, of being immoderately addicted to venery.