Simon Peter, a distinguished naturalist and geographer, born on the 22d of September 1741, was the son of Simon Pallas, a surgeon in the Prussian army, and professor of surgery at Berlin.

He received the early part of his education in his father's house, and his instructors bore ample testimony to the rapidity of his progress. At the age of fifteen he began to attend medical lectures, and he applied himself so closely to practical anatomy, that in 1758 he was found qualified to deliver a course of public lectures on that science. In the same year he went to Halle, and became the pupil of Segner, continuing also his studies of zoology, and, in particular, of entomology, with great assiduity. 1759 he removed to Göttingen, where he made a variety of experiments on poisons, and on other active medical substances, and commenced his observations on parasitical animals. In July 1760, he went on to Leyden, in order to attend the lectures of Albinius, Gaubius, and Muschenbroeck; and at the end of the same year he took his degree of doctor of physic. The following summer he proceeded to England, principally with the view of completing his medical education, although he devoted the greater part of his time to the active pursuit of natural history, being assisted and encouraged by the friendship of Peter Collinson, and of some other British naturalists, which procured for him a few years afterwards the distinction of having his name inserted in the list of the foreign members of the Royal Society, at the early age of twenty-three. He visited several parts of the coast of England, in order to examine its marine productions; and his love of natural history enabled him to profit in a similar manner by an accident which detained him for some time at Harwich, on his return to the Continent, in the spring of 1762.

Having paid a visit to his native city, he went again to the Hague, and established himself as a resident there under the patronage of Gaubius. On occasion of the publication of a miscellaneous work on zoology, which he dedicated to the Prince of Orange, he proposed a plan for an expedition to the Cape of Good Hope, and to the Dutch East Indies, which he offered to conduct in person; but although the project was encouraged by Gaubius, and approved by the prince, his father's interference prevented its execution, and obliged him to return to Berlin. His filial affection, however, was not strong enough to induce him to refuse the invitation of the Empress Catharine to St Petersburg, where he accepted, in the year 1767, the appointment of professor of natural history in the Imperial Academy of Sciences.

The first few months of his residence at St Petersburg were employed in preparing his Zoological Gleanings for publication, and in making catalogues of some collections of natural history. It was now that the more active career of his public life was about to commence; and in 1768 he undertook, in common with Falk, Lepechin, and Guldenstädt, the conduct of an expedition sent out by the empress, for the joint purposes of observing the transit of Venus, and of investigating the natural history and geography of Siberia, and the neighbouring countries. The object of their researches for the first summer was the province of Kasan, and the winter was passed at Simbirsk; the next year they examined the shores of the Caspian, and the borders of Calmuck Tartary; after which they returned through Orenburg, and passed the winter at Ufa. In 1770 Pallas crossed the Uralian Mountains to Catharinenburg, and, after examining the mines in that neighbourhood, proceeded to Tobolsk. The next year he went to the Altaic Mountains, traced the course of the Irtysch to Kolyvan, went on to Tomsk, and observed the natural freezing of quicksilver at Krasnoyarsk, on the Yenisei, in latitude 56° north. He proceeded in March 1772 by Irkutsk across the Lake Baikal, as far as Kiataka, and returned to Krasnoyarsk. In 1773 he visited Tara, Astracan, and Tzaritzin, on the Volga, and returned to St Petersburg in 1774, after an absence of six years. About ten years later he was made a member of the Board of Mines, with an additional salary of L200 a year; and he was complimented with the title of a knight of St Vladimir. The empress purchased his collection of natural history for a price one third greater than his demand, and allowed him, at the same time, to keep it in his possession for the remainder of his life.

In 1794 he took a journey into the Crimea, and was captivated with the beauty of the country and its productions; the climate also appearing to be such as his health was supposed to require, he obtained from his munificent patroness not only permission to establish himself there, but a grant of a large and fertile estate, and a sum of 10,000 rubles to assist him in his outfit. He was thus enabled to build a little palace rather than a country house, in which a traveller from the north of Europe was sure to receive the most obliging hospitality, as Dr Clarke has made well known to the English reader. It appears, however, that the air was not altogether exempt from the miasma, which are the causes of paludal fevers; and some other circumstances, besides the distance from all civilized society, seem to have made the old age of Pallas more cheerless than he had anticipated to find it, in the independence and tranquillity of his patriarchal establishment at Akmetshet. About ten years after the period of Dr Clarke's travels, he undertook a journey to Berlin to pay a visit to his brother, and died there in September 1811.

Linnaeus the younger has given him a genus, Pallasia, in his Supplementum Plantarum; a compliment to which his unremitting labours, in every department of natural history, had amply entitled him. His collection of dried plants was purchased by Dr Clarke's fellow-traveller, Mr Cripps, and passed into the possession of Aylmer Bourke Lambert.

The general character of Professor Pallas's acquirements appear to have been that of extent and variety, together with fidelity. He was not the author of any new theories or improved systems; and it has sometimes been observed, as by Murray in his System of Vegetables, that his descriptions were somewhat defective, from the omission of correct specific distinctions; but this omission is of such a nature as to affect a compiler or a book-maker much more than an actual student of natural history who is studying for his own improvement only, and who is capable of entering into a detailed examination of the objects concerned. To such a detail the principal part of Professor Pallas's works have relation; and it is impossible to enumerate the whole of his memoirs without making a pretty extensive catalogue of the productions of the various kingdoms of nature.

1. His Dissertatio Inauguralis de Insectis Viventibus intra Viventia, 4. Leyden, 1760, containing a systematic account of intestinal worms, is said to have been previously published in another form at Göttingen, a short time before he went to Leyden. 2. We find in the Philosophical Transactions for 1763, p. 62, a short note On the Cold observed at Berlin the preceding winter. 3. In the volume for 1766, p. 186, a description of the jaculator fish, or Sciena jaculatrix of the Indian Ocean, which catches insects by darting drops of water at them: this description is repeated in the Speciegia Zoologica, fasc. 8. 4. Elenchus Zoophytorum, 8. Hague, 1766; containing nearly three hundred species; Dutch by Boddart, with figures, 8. Utrecht, 1768. 5. Miscellanea Zoologica, 4. Hague, 1766; consisting of descriptions and dissections. 6. Speciegia Zoologica, 4. Berl. 1767-1780. Of this valuable collection of memoirs, intended for the description and illustration of new or little-known species of animals, there appeared in the whole fourteen fasciculi; some of them were published by Professor Martin during the author's absence in Siberia. We find, amongst other articles, an interesting account of the musk-deer, of various species of the antelope, and on the different varieties of sheep, both wild and tame; the latter has been published in English, On Russian and Tartar Sheep, 8. Edinb. 1794. 7. In the N. Act. Acad. Nat. Cur. iii. p. 430, Phalanurum biga; an account of two species of moth, of which the females are without wings, and spontaneously fertile. 8. A variety of miscellaneous papers, by Pallas, appeared in the Stralsund Magazine, which began to be published at Berlin in 1767: they chiefly relate to the Winter Residence of Swallows, vol. i. p. 20; to Hydatids found in the abdomen of ruminant animals, and supposed to be a species of tania, p. 64; to the Birds of Passage of Siberia, p. 145, from Heller's Notes; to Firmin's supposed discovery of the Origin of the Belemnite, p. 192; to some Peculiarities of Insects, p. 225; to a Poison supposed to be prepared in Siberia from the Sitta, or nut-batch, p. 311; to the Elk or Moose-Deer, p. 382, from Heller's papers; and to the use of the Sphondylium in Kamtschatka, p. 411. 9. Collections relating to the Mongol Tribes, published in 1776, and showing that they are distinct from the Tartars.

10. Professor Pallas's contributions to the Memoirs of the Imperial Academy of St Petersburg are also very numerous, and on miscellaneous subjects. In the Novi Commentarii we find an account of the Tubularia Fungosa, vol. xii., observed near Wolodimer; Lepus pusillus, and Fossil Bones of Siberia, vol. xiii.; Quadrupeds and Birds observed in 1769, vol. xiv.; Remains of Exotic Animals in Northern Asia, vol. xviii., especially the skulls of the rhinoceros and the buffalo; Tetrao arenaria, Equus hemionus, and Lacerta apoda, vol. xix.; the last also in Geneesek, Jaerboek, ii. In the Acta for 1777, ii., An Account of the Teeth of an Unknown Animal, like those which have been found in Canada; Observations, from Camper's Letters, on a Myrmecophaga and a Didelphis, and Equus asinus in the wild state. In the volume for 1779, ii., a Description of Plants peculiar to Siberia; Capra Caucasica, also in Lichtenberg's Magazin, ii. For 1780, part i. Galeopithecus vitans; part ii. On the Variations of Animals, and Didelphis brachyura. For 1781, part i. Felis manul, a new Asiatic species of Felis; ii. On some Species of Sorex. In the volume for 1783, New Species of Fishes; and 1784, On some new Marine Productions.

11. The Observations sur la Formation des Montagnes, et les Changements arrivés au Globe, particulièrement à l'égard de l'Empire Russe, published separately, 4. Petersb. 1777, were also inserted in the Acta of the Academy for 1777, having been read at a public sitting before the king of Sweden. A translation of this discourse is inserted in Tooke's Russian Empire, and some remarks on it are found in the Journal de Physique, vol. xiii.

12. The most considerable of the separate publications of Pallas was the account of his travels, entitled Reise durch verschiedene provizen des Russischen Reichs, 3 vols. 4. Petersburg, 1771—3—6; French, Svo, 8. Par. 1803; English, 2 vols. 4. London, 1812; a work of the highest authority in geography and natural history. 13. It was in the course of these travels that Pallas observed in Siberia an insulated mass of native iron, which he described in a paper addressed to the Royal Society of London, and printed in the Philosophical Transactions for 1776, p. 523; a substance which has become the subject of many discussions, from its resemblance to some of the specimens of well-ascertained aerolites; the author mentions also the remains of an unmineralized rhinoceros, which had been found in the same country.

14. In the Beschäftigungen Naturforschenden Freunden, published at Berlin about 1777, we find a letter on the Acipenser ruthenus, or sturgeon, vol. ii. p. 532; and An Account of a Monstrous Horse, vol. iii. p. 226. 15. Some Mineralogical Observations, addressed to Born, are published in the Böhmische Abhandlungen, vol. iii. p. 191. 16. In the Swedish Handlingar for 1778, we have the Alanda Mongolica, and the Surnus Daauricus; the Anas glocitans, in 1779.

17. Novae species Glirium, 4. Erlang. 1778. 18. Icones, Insectorum, praesertim Rossiae Sibiriaeque, 4. Erlang. 1781. 19. Enumeratio Plantarum Procopii a Demidoff, 8. Petersb. 1781.

20. Another channel in which a number of Pallas's most valuable essays appeared, is the work entitled Neue Nordische Beyträge, which he published at St Petersburg and Leipzig in 1781 and the following years. The most remarkable of the subjects of these are, A Great Exotic Animal found in Kasan in the year 1776; on the Migration of the Water-Rat on the Volga, and Observations on Tannia, vol. i.; further Remarks on Tannia; on American Monkeys bred at St Petersburg; on the Ardea helias; on the Culex lamio, sometimes fatal to Cattle; on the Phalangium, or Scorpion Spider; and on Copper Island, in the Sea of Kamtschatka, vol. ii.: on Two Birds; and on the Labrador Stone, vol. iii.: on a Cross of the Black Wolf with the Dog; on a Mine; on the Oriental Turquois; and Mineralogical Novelties from Siberia, vol. v.

21. In the Physische Arbeiten of Vienna, we have a geological Essay on the Orography of Siberia, vol. i. 1.

22. Flora Rossica, f. vol. i. Petersb. 1784; ii. 1788, published at the expense of the empress.

23. Tableau Physique et Topographique de la Tauroide, 4. Petersb. 1793; German, in N. N. Beyträge, vii.: a work derived chiefly from the observations made by the author in his travels of 1792.

24. A Monography of the Astragali is mentioned by some of his biographers.

25. He edited also Guldenstädt's Reisen durch Russland und in den Caucasischen gebirgen, ii. v. 4. Petersb. 1787—1791. 26. He also compiled and arranged the two first and most valuable of the four volumes of the Vocabularia Comparativa, 4. Petersb. 1787, in which he attempted to make some improvements in the Russian orthography.

(Coxe's Travels; Clarke's Travels; Tooke's Russian Empire; Halleri Bibliotheca Anatomica; Aikin's General Biography, vol. x. 4to. Lond. 1815; Chalmers's Biographical Dictionary, vol. xxiii. 8vo, Lond. 1815; Dryander, Bibliotheca Bursiana.)

PALLAVICINI Ferrante, a noted Italian writer, descended from a noble family in Piacenza, was born about the close of the sixteenth century. He soon gave proofs of an extraordinary genius, and improved rapidly in classical erudition. He was afterwards sent to complete his education in the monastery of Augustinian friars at Milan, where he took the habit, lived much esteemed for piety and learning, and raised great expectations of future fame; but being somewhat amorous inclined, he engaged in an intrigue with a young woman of Venice, whose charms proved irresistible; and in order to enjoy them without restraint, he obtained leave from his general to make the tour of France. Accordingly he pretended to set out for that country; but it was only a blind to cover his real design. He never left Venice, where he lived privately, enchanted with the attractions of his Venus; and having too ready a talent for invention, he imposed upon his friends, by often sending them, in letters, feigned accounts of his travels through France, and also informing them of several things respecting that court, which he learned from the advices of many considerable persons with whom he corresponded.

His finances were in the mean time greatly reduced; and in this exigency he naturally had recourse to his wits for supplies. He wrote for the booksellers, and composed several pieces, more for the sake of gain than out of any fondness for authorship. Amongst other things, he wrote a collection of letters, mostly satirical, which he called The Courier Robbed of his Mail. The work appeared at first in such a cast as could not give great offence, except to the Spaniards, against whom he had some grudge, and the piece was accordingly licensed by the inquisitors; but when it fell into the hands of the secre- Pallavicini, tary of the republic of Venice, who was at that time licensor of books, he refused his *imprimatur*, though great interest was employed for that purpose; neither would he return the manuscript. This enraged Pallavicini so much, that had not his friends restrained him, he would have pursued the affair to his ruin.

At length he found an opportunity of travelling into Germany with the Duke of Amalfi, as his grace's chaplain. But this journey had no good effect either on his wit or his morals. On the contrary, finding himself, from the manners of the Germans, more at liberty, he indulged his genius and passions with greater freedom; and after a residence of more than a year in that country with the duke, he returned to Venice. He was now resolved to have his full measure of revenge against the secretary of the republic for keeping back his manuscript, and also to attack the family of Barberini, Urban VIII. and his nephews, because they had also endeavoured to get all his manuscripts prohibited. In this rancorous spirit he cast his Courier into a new model, and enlarged it with many letters and discourses. Thus new modelled, he offered it to a bookseller, who undertook to get it printed; but our author was betrayed by a pretended friend, who acted the part of a spy, and informed the Archbishop of Vitelli, then the pope's nuncio at Venice, just as the work was finished at the press; and upon the complaint of the nuncio, Pallavicini was imprisoned. In this miserable condition he found a friend in one of his mistresses, who, seeing him abandoned by most of his patrons, not only supported him, but conveyed letters to him, by which she gave him such information as enabled him to make a proper defence, and to recover his liberty.

But a war having in the mean time broken out between the Barberini and the Duke of Parma, Pallavicini, in order to revenge himself upon the supposed instruments of his imprisonment, wrote a piece entitled *Buccinata, ovvero Butarella, per le opi Barberini*, and dedicated it, in terms of the profoundest contempt, to the nuncio Vitelli. The nuncio, finding that little notice was taken of his complaints on the occasion, procured by bribery one Charles Morfu, a Frenchman, who pretended to pass for a gentleman, to ensnare Pallavicini; and with this view the traitor used his utmost endeavours to insinuate himself into the friendship of Pallavicini, and at length exhorted him to accompany him to France. He declared that his fortune would be made by the extraordinary encouragement which was given to men of letters by Cardinal Richelieu; and the better to favour the deceit, he produced feigned letters from the cardinal, inviting our author to France, and expressing a desire he had to establish in Paris an academy for the Italian tongue, under the direction of Pallavicini. The snare took; and Pallavicini, fascinated by the prospect of gain, suffered himself to be led like an ox to the slaughter. He left Venice much against the advice of his friends, and went first to Bergamo, where he spent a few days with some of his relations, by way of entertaining Morfu. They then set off for Geneva, to the great satisfaction of Pallavicini, who proposed to get some of his works printed there, which he had not been able to do in Italy. Morfu, however, instead of conducting him to Paris, took the road to Avignon, where, crossing the bridge of Soraces, in the county of Venaissin, they were seized by a gang of *sbirri*, on pretence of carrying contraband goods, and confined. Morfu was quickly discharged, and very liberally rewarded; but Pallavicini, being carried to Avignon, was imprisoned; and notwithstanding he made a very skilful defence, it was all in vain. The sentence had already been brought from Rome, and he was to undergo trial, merely for form's sake. Being now put into a dark dungeon, he made an abortive effort to escape. He managed matters so well with his keeper as to procure wax-candles to be allowed him, under pretence of amusing himself with reading, and when he had got a number of these, he one night set fire to the prison door, in order to get off by that means; but the stratagem did not succeed, and he was of course subjected to closer confinement, and treated with greater inhumanity than before. After a year's suffering, he was brought to trial, in which he made an excellent defence, and flattered himself with hopes of relief. He had even begun a whimsical piece on the subject of melancholy; but, contrary to his expectations, he was sentenced to die, and lost his head on a scaffold, in the flower of his age.

Pallavicini was of so heedless and profuse a disposition, that had he possessed an immense estate he would have spent it all. On the other hand, no one could be more sincere and faithful in his friendships, nor was there ever a greater victim to treachery; yet, when released from prison in Venice, being told that a wretch had betrayed him, he could not be prevailed upon to believe it, saying, "How can this be, since he declared himself my friend, and I made him privy to all my concerns?" Whilst he wore a religious habit, he used to study or write two or three hours in bed every morning. The rest of the day he spent either in the company of idle persons, or else with the ladies; but after he had wholly left the monastic life, upon pretence of securing himself from the snares of his enemies, he lived in a very irregular manner. He was possessed of a fine genius, had a great facility in writing, and, till he was corrupted by the commerce of lewd women, wrote pieces worthy of immortality.