PARTITION

(Lat. partitio.) In Music, the arrangement of the several parts of a composition on the same page or pages, ranged methodically above and under eacli other, S3 that they may be all under the eye of the performer or conductor, and sung or played jointly or separately as the composer intended. It is commonly called a score. Partition. In Architecture, the vertical a emblage of materials which divides one apartment from another. It is usually, however, employed to denote such division when constructed of vertical pieces of timber called quarters. Partition. In Politics, the division of the states of a sovereign or prince, after his decease, among his heirs, as was the custom in some of the princely families in the ancient German empire; or among other powers, such as that of the states of the king of Spain, which was in contemplation (against all justice) between William III., Louis XIV., and the Dutch, by the treaties of 1698 and 1699, when Charles II., the reigning monarch, was without near heirs. But the most celebrated partitions in history,to which the name has become almost exclusively attached, were those of Poland, by Ru ia, Pru ia, and Austria. The first of these took place in 1772, when various provinces were wrested from the republic in pretended (Satisfaction of ancient claims, and the old and vicious constitution guaranteed by the three powers. The second was submitted to by Stan is las in 1793, when Ru ia obtained the remainder of Lithuania, and Pru ia Dantzic, Thorn, and an extensive district. This partition was followed by the insurrection under Kosciusko, which brought about the third and last partition in 1795, when the remnant of the country was dismembered. It was organized in 1807, altered in 1815; but the conditions under which Poland was then annexed to Ru ia, as a separate kingdom, were entirely set aside after the Polish insurrection of 1830, and it is now substantially and in fact a province of Ru ia. These partitions overturned the ancient balance of power in Europe, and prepared the way for the violent changes which followed the French revolution. (See Koch, Revolutions de r Europe; Rulhieres, His to ire dc V Jinarchie de Pologne; Ferrand, His to ire des Trois Demembrcmens dc Pologne, 3 vols., Paris, 1820; Ed. Rev., vol. xxxvii., p. 462.) [s. 918]