or PLESKOW, a government or statholderate of the empire of Russia. It is formed out of a part of what was formerly Great Russia, or rather of the grand principality of Novgorod. It extends in north latitude from 55° 55' to 58° 4', and in east longitude from 27° 15' to 32° 1', having a superficies of 22,990 square miles. It is divided into eight circles, and comprehends ten cities or towns, and four hundred and thirty-five parishes. The population amounts to about 800,000 persons. The climate is severely cold, and the soil not fertile. The surface is covered with gentle elevations, woods, rivers, lakes, morasses, and heaths. The chief products, beyond what domestic consumption requires, consist of pitch, tar, flax, hemp, planks, masts, and flax-seed, which are conveyed to St Petersburg. The capital is the city of the same name situated on the Welikaja, is the see of an archbishop, with a cathedral, and fifty-nine other churches. It contains 1480 houses, constructed for the most part of wood, and about 10,000 inhabitants, whose chief trade is making sail-cloth and linen, and dealing in the raw products of their district. Long. 29° 5'. E. Lat. 57° 40'. N.

PHÆDO, a native of Elis, was the founder of the Eliac sect of philosophy, and the person whose name Plato inscribed in one of his most celebrated dialogues. The exact date of his birth and death is unknown, but he flourished B.C. 399. By the fortune of war he was taken prisoner, and reduced to a state of slavery. He was brought to Athens, where he became known to Socrates, who admired his talents so much that he caused Alcibiades or Crito to release him from servitude. He then became one of the most devoted attendants on his benefactor. It appears that he was not at all satisfied with the manner in which he was introduced by Plato into his dialogue; and he used to declare publicly that he had never spoken in that way, and that he had never heard Socrates use the language which Plato put into his mouth. Plato was so much offended with this proceeding, that, in revenge, he threatened to bring a lawsuit against Phædo, to prove that he had never received his freedom. (Athenæus, xi. 503, e; 507, c.) He composed several dialogues, the titles of which were, Zopyrus, Simon, and several which it was doubtful if they belonged to him; Nicias, Antimachus, Medas, ascribed by some to Æschines, by others to Polyænus; Sythici Sermones, ascribed also to Æschines; and three others quoted by Suidas. He was succeeded in his school by Pleistanus of Elis, Pleistanus by Stilpo, Stilpo by Menemus of Eretria and Asclepiades of Phlius. (Diogenes Laertius's Life of Phædo.)

PHÆDRA, in fabulous history, was a daughter of Minos and Pasiphaë, who married Theseus, by whom she became the mother of Acamas and Demophon. They had already lived for some time in conjugal felicity, when Venus, who hated all the descendants of Apollo, because he had discovered her amours with Mars, inspired Phaedra with the strongest passion for Hippolytus, the son of Theseus by the Amazon Hippolyte. This passion she long attempted to stifle, but in vain; and therefore, in the absence of Theseus, she addressed Hippolytus with all the impatience of desponding love. He rejected her with horror and disdain. Incensed at the reception which she had met, she resolved to punish his coldness and refusal; and on the return of Theseus she accused Hippolytus of attempts upon her virtue. He listened to her accusation, and, without hearing Hippolytus's defence, banished him from his kingdom, and implored Neptune, who had promised to grant three of his requests, to punish him in an exemplary manner. As Hippolytus fled from Athens, his horses were suddenly terrified by a sea monster, which Neptune had sent on the shore; and he was thus dragged through precipices and over rocks, trampled under the feet of his horses, and crushed under the wheels of his chariot. When his tragic end became known at Athens, Phaedra confessed her crime, and hung herself in despair, unable to survive one whose death had been occasioned by her licentiousness and falsehood. The death of Hippolytus, and the infamous passion of Phaedra, form the subject of a tragedy of Euripides, and also of one by Seneca. She was buried at Troezena, where her tomb was still to be seen in the time of the geographer Pausanias, near to the temple of Venus, which she had built to render the goddess favourable to her passion. Close by her tomb was a myrtle, the leaves of which were full of small holes, which, it was reported, Phaedra had done with a hair pin, when the vehemence of her passion had rendered her melancholy and almost desperate. She was represented in a painting in the temple of Apollo at Delphi, as suspended in the air, whilst her sister Ariadne stood close by, with her eyes fixed upon Phaedra.

PHÆDRUS, the author of five books of fables, in Latin iambic measure, was a native of Thrace or Macedonia, and brought at a very early age to Rome, where he became the slave of Augustus, and from whom he subsequently received his freedom. The few facts that we know respecting his personal history are to be collected from his fables, as he is noticed by no earlier writer than Avianus, unless, perhaps, Martial may allude to him in one of his epigrams (iii. 20). If he really existed at this early period, it is strange that he should have been unknown to Seneca (Cons.ad Polych. 27). By his long residence at Rome, Phædrus acquired a complete acquaintance with the language, and wrote it with as much ease as he could have done that of his own country. In the reign of Tiberius, he excited the wrath of Sejanus, and was banished by him, though for what cause we are nowhere distinctly informed. Under Caligula we find him in hopes of being reinstated in his position at court, through the influence of Eutychus. Part at least of these fables must have been written in the latter years of the poet, and not published till after the death of Sejanus. Schwabe, who has examined this point with great diligence, thinks that the first two books were written after the departure of Tiberius to Caprea, the third under Caligula, and the fourth and fifth under Claudius. One part of these fables consists of very happy translations of the Greek fables of Æsop into the Latin language, or imitations of them in verse, similar to that employed in the translations. The other part seems to have been original, or at least we have no longer the writers from whom he borrowed his subjects. The style is pure, the language remarkably correct, and the whole is written with simplicity and ease. Yet many have doubted whether these fables can be considered as the genuine productions of Phædrus, the freedman of Augustus, as we have so few manuscripts of the work, and as Seneca was evidently unacquainted with it. Some ascribe them to the pen of Nicolaus Perotti, archbishop of Manfredonia, who lived about the middle of the fifteenth century; but, in later times, the discovery of some manuscripts, one of which is considered as of the tenth century, has proved the incorrectness of such a supposi-

VOL. XVII. PHÆNOMENON, in philosophy, denotes any remarkable appearance, whether in the heavens or in the earth, and whether discovered by observation or by experiment.