is the grand assembly of the three estates of this kingdom, summoned together, by the king's authority, to consult of matters relating to the public welfare, and particularly to enact and repeal laws. It consists of the king, the lords spiritual and temporal, and the commons, and is at once the seat of the legislative authority, and the highest court of justice upon the nation. In the house of lords, criminal causes are tried on the impeachment of the commons; and this house has an original jurisdiction for the trial of peers upon indictments found by a grand jury; the lords likewise try such cases as come thither on appeals from the court of chancery, and all their decrees are as judgments. The house of commons examine the right of elections; regulate disputes concerning them; may expel their own members, and commit them to prison. They are the grand inquest of the nation; and present public grievances or delinquents to the king and lords, in order to their being punished. In short, they are the representatives of all the commons in the kingdom; and in them their constituents have placed the highest confidence, by investing them with the power of making laws, and entrusting them with all their liberties and privileges.

Originally, new parliaments were called every year; but by degrees their term grew longer. In the reign of king Charles II., they were held a long time, with great interruptions between; but both methods were found of such ill consequence, that, in the beginning of the reign of king William III., an act was passed, by which the term of all parliaments was refrained to three sessions, or three years; this was hence called the triennial act: but since that time, from other views, the period of parliaments has been lengthened to seven years. A parliament is called by the king's writ or letter directed to each lord, commanding him to appear; and by other writs, directed to the sheriffs of each county, to summon the people to elect two knights for each county, and one or two burgesses for each borough. The number of the members in the house of lords is uncertain, as increasing at the king's pleasure. The members of the house of commons, when full, are five hundred and fifty-three; viz. ninety-two knights of the shires; fifty-two deputies for twenty-five cities, London having four; sixteen for the eight cinque-ports; two for each university; three hundred and thirty-two for an hundred and eighty boroughs; twelve for the boroughs in Wales, and forty-five members for Scotland. If three hundred of these members are met, it is reckoned a full house; and forty may compose a house for the dispatch of business.

Upon the holding of a parliament, the king, the first day, sits in the upper-house, under a canopy, with the crown on his head, and drested in his royal robes; and there, by himself, or the lord chancellor, declares the reasons of their meeting, in the presence of both the lords and commons; and then the commons are required to choose a speaker, who is presented to the king, and being approved by his majesty, the business of the parliament goes on.

The lords and commons sit each in a distinct apartment: in the house of lords, the princes of the blood sit by themselves on the sides of the throne; at the wall, on the king's right hand, the two archbishops sit by themselves on a form. Below them, the bishops of London, Durham, and Winchester, and all the other bishops, sit according to the priority of their consecration. On the king's left hand the lord-treasurer, lord president, and lord privy-seal, sit upon forms above all dukes, except the royal blood; then the dukes, marquises, and earls, according... According to their creation. Across the room are wool-sacks, continued from an ancient custom; and the chancellor, or keeper, being of course the speaker of the house of lords, sits on the first wool-sack before the throne, with the great seal or mace lying by him; below these are thrones for the viscounts and barons. On the other wool-sacks are seated the judges, masters in chancery, and king's council, who are only to give their advice in points of law; but they all stand up till the king gives them leave to sit. The commons sit promiscuously; only the speaker has a chair at the upper end of the house, and the clerk and his assistant sit at a table near him. Before any business is done, all the members of the house of commons take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, etc., and declare their opinions against transubstantiation, etc., and if any member of that house votes, or sits there during any debate, after the speaker is chosen, without having first taken these oaths, between the hours of nine and four, in a full house, he is adjudged a Popish recusant convict, and incapable of any office, and forfeits five hundred pounds. The same test the lords too, though they do not take the oaths, are obliged to comply with.

When the parliament is thus met, no members are to depart from it without leave. Upon extraordinary occasions, all the members are sometimes summoned; in which case every lord spiritual and temporal, and every knight, citizen, and burgess, is to come to parliament, except he can reasonably and honestly excuse himself; or be amerced; that is, respectively, a lord by the lords, and a commoner by the commons.

All members of parliament, in order that they may attend the public service of their country, have the privilege for themselves of being free from arrests, attachments, imprisonment, etc., for debts, treasuries, etc., but not from arrests for treason, felony, and breach of the peace.

As to the election of members, it is enacted, That candidates shall not make any presents of money to, or treat the electors, after the test of the writ of the summons, or the issuing out of the writs for elections, or after any seat for a member of parliament is become vacant; in case they do, they are declared incapable of serving as members, by 7 W. III. c. 4. And farther, an oath is to be taken by electors, That they have not either received, or had any money, gift, reward, or any office, place, employment, or even promise of money, gift, etc., to them or their use, to give their votes; and in these cases, if they ask, take, or contract for money or reward, either by gift or other device, to give or refuse their votes for any one; or if persons, by gift, etc., corruptly procure any elector to give his vote; they shall forfeit five hundred pounds, and be totally disabled to vote at any election of members of parliament, as also to hold any office, franchise, etc. Likewise officers who admit persons to vote without their taking the aforementioned oath, in case the same be demanded, incur a forfeiture of one hundred pounds; and an oath is to be administered to all the returning officers, that they have not received any money, gift, or place, for the making of their returns: 2 Geo. II. c. 24. 9 Geo. II. c. 38. A knight of the shire must be worth six hundred pounds a-year in land, and all other members three hundred pounds.

Anciently all the people had votes in elections, till it was enacted by Henry VI. that none but freeholders, who had a yearly revenue of forty shillings, should be admitted to vote for knights of the shire.

The manner of debating upon, and passing bills in parliament, is as follows: Any member may move to have a bill brought in, which, upon a question put, being agreed to by the majority, this person, with others, is ordered to prepare and bring in the same. When it is ready, a time is appointed for its being read; and after the clerk's reading it, the speaker reads an abstract of it, and puts the question whether or no it shall have a second reading; and after a second reading, the question is put whether or no it shall be committed, which is either to a committee of the whole house if it be of importance, or to a private committee, any member naming the persons. The committee being appointed, and a chairman chosen, the chairman reads the bill paragraph by paragraph, puts every clause to the question, fills up the blanks, and makes amendments, according to the opinion of the majority. The bill thus gone through, the chair-man makes his report at the side-bar of the house, reads all the additions and amendments, etc., and moves for leave to bring up the report to the table; which granted, he delivers it to the clerk, who reads the amendments, etc. The speaker then puts the question whether they shall be read a second time; and, if agreed to, he reads them himself. To so many of the amendments as the house acquiesces in, the question is now put, Whether the bill, thus amended, shall be ingrossed and written fair upon parchment, and read a third time? and the bill being ingrossed, the speaker holds it in his hand, and asks if it shall pass. If the majority be for it, the clerk writes on it, "Soit baille aux seigneurs," "Let it be delivered to the lords;" or if in the house of lords, "Soit baille aux communes," "Let it be delivered to the commons." If a bill be rejected, it cannot be any more proposed during that session. A bill for a general pardon has but one reading.

When a member of the house of commons speaks, he stands up uncovered, and directs his speech to the speaker only. If what he says be answered by another, he is not allowed to reply the same day, unless personal reflections have been cast upon him: but when the commons, in order to have a greater freedom of debate, have resolved themselves into a committee of the whole house, every member may speak to a question as often as he thinks necessary. In the house of lords they vote, beginning at the puisne, or lowest baron and so upwardly to the highest, every one answering Content or Not content. In the house of commons they vote by yeas and nays; and if it be dubious which are the greater number, the house divides. If the question be about bringing anything into the house, the yeas go out; but if it be about anything the house already has, the nays go out. In all divisions the speaker appoints four tellers, two of each opinion. In a committee of the whole house, they divide by changing sides, the yeas taking the right and the nays the left of the chair; and then there are but two tellers. If a bill passes one house, and the other demur to it, a conference is demanded in the painted chamber, where certain members are deputies from each house; and here the lords sit covered, and the commons stand bare and debate the case. If they disagree, the affair is null; but if they agree, gree; this, with the other bells that have passed both houses, is brought down to the king in the house of lords, who comes thither cloathed in his royal robes; before him the clerk of the parliament reads the title of each bill, and as he reads, the clerk of the crown pronounces the royal assent or dissent. If it be a public bill, the royal assent is given in these words, *Le roy veut*, "The king will have it so;" if private, *Soit fait comme il est désiré*, "Let the request be complied with;" if the king refuses the bill, the answer is, *Le roy s'avisera*, "The king will think of it;" and if it be a money-bill, the answer is, *Le roy remercie ses loyaux sujets, accepte leur benevolence, & aussi le veut*; "The king thanks his loyal subjects, accepts their benevolence, and therefore grants his consent."

**Parliaments of France**, are sovereign courts, established by the king, finally to determine all disputes between particular persons, and to pronounce on appeals from sentences given by inferior judges. There are ten of these parliaments in France, of which that of Paris is the chief, its privileges and jurisdiction being of the greatest extent. It consists of six chambers, viz. the grand chamber, where causes of audience are pleaded; and five chambers of inquest, where processes are adjudged in writing. This parliament enjoys the privileges of verifying and registering the king's arrests or edicts, without which those edicts are of little or no value.

**Parliament of Sweden**, consists of four estates, with the king at their head: These estates are, 1. The nobility and representatives of the gentry; with whom the colonels, lieutenant-colonels, majors, and captains of every regiment, sit and vote. 2. The clergy; one of which body is elected from every rural deanery of ten parishes; who, with the bishops and superintendents, amount to about two hundred. 3. The burghers, elected by the magistrates and council of every corporation as their representatives, of whom there are four for Stockholm, and two for every other town, amounting in the whole to about an hundred and fifty. 4. The peasants, chosen by the peasants out of every district; who choose one of their own rank, and not a gentleman, to represent them: these amount to about two hundred and fifty.

All these generally meet at Stockholm; and after the state-affairs have been represented to them from the throne, they separate, and sit in four several chambers or houses, in each of which affairs are carried on by majority of votes; and every chamber has a negative in the passing any law.

**Parma**, the capital of the duchy of Parma, in Italy, sixty miles north-east of Genoa, is pleasantly situated on a river to which it gives name: E. long. 11°, N. lat. 44° 45'.

**Parnassia**, in botany, a genus of the pentandria teratogynia clas. The calyx consists of five segments, and the corolla of five petals; it has five cordated nectaria, with round buttons on their points; and the capsule has four valves. There is but one species, viz. the palustris, or grass of Parnassus, a native of Britain.

**Parnassus**, a mountain of Greece, much celebrated by ancient poets, situated near Castro in Livadia.

**Parody**, a popular maxim, adage, or proverb.

Parody is also a poetical pleasantry, consisting in applying the verses written on one subject, by way of ridicule to another; or in turning a serious work into a

**Burlesque**, by affecting to observe, as nearly as possible, the same rhymes, words, and cadences.

**Paronomasia**, in rhetoric, a pun; or a figure whereby words nearly alike in sound, but of very different meanings, are affectedly or deignedly used.

**Paros**, one of the smallest islands of the Cyclades, famous for its marble, situated in E. long. 25° 30', N. lat. 36° 30'.

**Parotides**, in anatomy. See Anatomy, p. 270.

**Paroxysm**, in medicine, the severe fit of a disease, under which it grows higher, or exasperates, as of the gout, &c.

**Parrels**, in a ship, are frames made of trucks, ribs, and ropes, which having both their ends fastened to the yards, are so contrived, as to go round about the masts; that the yards, by their means, may go up and down upon the mast; these also, with the breast-ropes, fasten the yards to the masts.

**Parricide**. See Law, Tit. xxxiii. 19.

**Parrot**, in ornithology. See Psittacus.

**Parsley**, in botany. See Apium.

**Parsnip**, in botany. See Pastinaca.

**Parson**, the rector or incumbent of a parish-church.

**Parsonage**, a rectory or parish-church, endowed with a house, glebe, lands, tithes, &c. for the maintenance of a minister, with cure of souls within such parish.

**Parts of Speech**, in grammar, are all the sorts of words which enter the composition of discourse. See Grammar.

**Parterre**, in gardening, a level division of ground, which, for the most part, faces the south and best front of an house; and is generally furnished with greens, flowers, &c.

**Parthenium**, in botany, a genus of the monoecia pentandria clas. The common calyx of the male consists of five leaves; and the corolla of the dish are monopetalous. The corollas of the radius in the female are five; two of each side are males, and the intermediate one female, above a naked seed. There are two species, none of them natives of Britain.

**Parthia**, a country of Asia, formerly so called, situated almost in the middle of the modern Persia.

**Parti**, **Partie**, **Party**, or **Parted**, in heraldry, is applied to a shield or escutcheon, denoting it divided or marked out into partitions.

Parti per pale is when the shield is divided perpendicularly into two halves, by a cut in the middle from top to bottom. See Plate CXXXIV. fig. 11.

Parti per fess is when the cut is across the middle, from side to side.

Parti per bend dexter, is when the cut comes from the upper corner of the shield, on the right hand, and descends athwart to the opposite lower corner.

Parti per bend sinister, is when the cut, coming from the upper left corner, descends across to the opposite lower one.

From these four partitions have proceeded an infinite number of others, of various and extravagant forms.

**Participle**, in grammar, an adjective formed of a verb, so called because it participates partly of the properties of a noun, and partly of those of a verb. See Grammar.

**Particle**, in physiology, the minute part of a body, an assemblage of which constitute all natural bodies.

It is the various arrangement and texture of these particles, with the difference of cohesion, &c., that constitute the various kinds of bodies. The smallest particles cohere with the strongest attraction, and compose bigger particles of weaker cohesion; and many of these cohering compose bigger particles, whose vigour is still weaker; and hereupon the operations in chemistry, and the colours of natural bodies, depend, and which, by cohering, compose bodies of sensible bulk. The cohesion of the particles of matter, the Epicureans imagined, was effected by means of hooked atoms; the Aristotelians, by rest; but Sir Isaac Newton shews, that it is done by means of a certain power, whereby the particles mutually attract and tend towards each other. By this attraction of the particles, he shews, that most of the phenomena of the lesser bodies are affected, as those of the heavenly bodies are, by the attraction of gravity.