PYLUS, or PYLos, an ancient t. of 3lessenia in the Peloponnesus, from which Homer's Nestor is supposed to have come, though the poet may have referred to the city of the same name in Triphylia. After the second Messenian war the old city was destroyed by the inhabitants; but ii.c. 425 the site was fortified by the Athenian forces under Demosthenes the general, and here they gained a noted victory over the Spartans. The present port of Navarino was probably the scene of the naval battle of Sphactcria.
PYM, Jolt's, famous as the leader of the popular party in the house of commons in the reign of Charles I., was b. in 1584. He came of a good family in Somersetshire, and had considerable property in that county. He was for some years a gentleman commoner of Pembroke college, Oxford, and afterward studied law at one of the ions of court. Having been sent to parliament as member for Tavistock, in Devonshire, he attached himself to the popular party; and, during the later part of the reign of James I., became noted for his vigorous opposition to the arbitrary measures of the court. In 1626, the year after the accession a Charles I., he distinguished himself by taking a prominent part in the impeachment of the king's favorite, the duke of Buckingham. In 1640, the functions of parliament in abeyance for 13 years, during which time the popular discontents had gradually been growins. to a head, the celebrated long parliament was convened; and from the first, Pym was growing common consent recognized in it as the leader of the opposition to the despotic policy of the monarch. For the position which he thus occupied his qualifications were eminent. In temper, he was bold and fearless; ho was master of an eloquence close, terse, and vigorous; and in knowledge of parliamentary form and business procedure, it was considered he had scarcely his equal in the house. On Nov 3, as soon as business had opened, he set
forth to the house, in a long and elaberabe address, the intolerable grievances under which the nation labored; and a week after, he boldly denounced the earl of Strafford as the " great promoter of tyranny," to whose evil influence on the mind of the king these grievances were in the main to be attributed. In the impeachment of Strafford which followed, resulting in his execution under a bill of attainder passed upon him, Pym took the leading part. Of this master-stroke of policy, which deprived the king of the one man of resolute temper and powerful genius who adhered to his cause, the credit must be chiefly awarded to Pym. In the subsequent proceedings tesainst Laud he was also conspicuous, as in every other crisis of moment, up to the time when war became inevitable between the king and the parliament. On the breakins. out of hos tilities, he remained at his post in London, and in the exercise of the functions of the executive there, rendered services to the cause not less valuable and essential than those of a general in the field. While the strife was yet pending, he died somewhat suddenly at Derby house, on 8, 1643, having been appointed to the important post of lieut. of the ordnance only the mouth previous. He was buried at Westminster abbey with great pomp on the 13th; and was borne to his last resting-place by six members of the house of commons. The house of commons also voted £10,000 in payment of his debts.