ly and connected with Sir E. Montague, afterwards Earl of
Sandwich, was _ed._ at St. Paul's School and at Camb. After leaving the
Univ. he entered the household of Montagu, who became his life long
patron. He held various Government posts, including that of
Surveyor-General of the Victualling Office, in which he displayed great
administrative ability and reforming zeal, and in 1672 he became Sec. of
the Admiralty. After being imprisoned in the Tower on a charge in
connection with the Popish plot, and deprived of his office, he was in
1686 again appointed Sec. of the Admiralty, from which, however, he was
dismissed at the Revolution. Thereafter he lived in retirement chiefly at
Clapham. P. was a man of many interests, combining the characters of the
man of business, man of pleasure, and _virtuoso_, being skilled in music
and a collector of books, manuscripts, and pictures, and he was Pres. of
the Royal Society for two years. He wrote _Memoirs of the Royal Navy_
(1690), but his great legacy to literature is his unique and inimitable
_Diary_, begun January 1, 1660, and coming down to May 31, 1669, when the
failure of his sight prevented its further continuance. As an account by
an eye-witness of the manners of the Court and of society it is
invaluable, but it is still more interesting as, perhaps, the most
singular example extant of unreserved self-revelation--all the foibles,
peccadilloes, and more serious offences against decorum of the author
being set forth with the most relentless _naivete_ and minuteness, it was
written in a cypher or shorthand, which was translated into long-hand by
John Smith in 1825, and ed. by Lord Braybrooke, with considerable
excisions. Later and fuller ed. have followed. P. left his books, MSS.,
and collections to Magdalene Coll., Camb., where they are preserved in a
separate library.

PERCIVAL, JAMES GATES (1795-1854).--Poet, _b._ at Berlin, Conn., was a
precocious child, and a morbid and impractical, though versatile man,
with a fatal facility in writing verse on all manner of subjects and in
nearly every known metre. His sentimentalism appealed to a wide circle,
but his was one of the tapers which were extinguished by Lowell. He had
also a reputation as a geologist. His poetic works include _Prometheus_
and _The Dream of a Day_ (1843).

PERCY, THOMAS (1729-1811).--Antiquary and poet, _s._ of a grocer at
Bridgnorth, where he was _b._, _ed._ at Oxf., entered the Church, and
became in 177