Part 64 (1/2)

Consider, sir, I pray you, how the n.o.ble Patelin, having a mind to extol to the third heavens, the father of William Josseaume, said no more than this: he did lend his goods freely to those who were desirous of them.--Rabelais, _Pantagruel_, iii. 4 (1545).

=Pater Patrum.= St. Gregory, of Nyssa is so called by the council of Nice (332-395).

=Paterson= (_Pate_), serving-boy to Bryce Snailsfoot, the pedlar.--Sir W.

Scott, _The Pirate_ (time, William III.).

=Pathfinder= (_The_), Natty b.u.mpo; also called ”The Deerslayer”[TN-67]

”The Hawk-eye,” and ”The Trapper.”--Fenimore Cooper, (five novels called _The Pathfinder_, _The Pioneers_, _The Deerslayer_, _The Last of the Mohicans_, and _The Prairie_).

=Pathfinder of the Rocky Mountains.=[TN-68] (_The_), Major-General John Charles Fremont, who conducted four exploring expeditions across the Rocky Mountains in 1842.

=Patient Griselda= or =Grisildis=, the wife of Wautier, marquis of Saluces. Boccaccio says she was a poor country la.s.s, who became the wife of Gualtiere, marquis of Saluzzo. She was robbed of her children by her husband, reduced to abject poverty, divorced, and commanded to a.s.sist in the marriage of her husband with another woman; but she bore every affront patiently, and without complaint.--Chaucer, _Canterbury Tales_ (”The Clerk's Tale,” 1388); Boccaccio, _Decameron_, x. 10 (1352).

=Patience Strong.= Delightful old maid, who, after pa.s.sing most of her life in a quiet New England towns.h.i.+p, goes abroad and tells her experiences in _Sights and Insights_.--A. D. T. Whitney (1860).

She is also the central figure in a quiet story of domestic life, ent.i.tled _Patience Strong's Outings_ (1858).

=Patin=, brother of the emperor of Rome. He fights with Am'adis of Gaul, and has his horse killed under him.--Vasco de Lobeira, _Amadis de Gaul_ (thirteenth century).

=Patison=, licensed jester to Sir Thos. More. Hans Holbein has introduced this jester in his famous picture of the lord chancellor.

=Patriarch of Dorchester=,[TN-69] John White, of Dorchester, a puritan divine (1574-1648).

=Patriarchs= (_The Last of the_). So _Christopher Casby_, of Bleeding-heart Yard was called. ”So grey, so slow, so quiet, so impa.s.sionate, so very b.u.mpy in the head, that patriarch was the word for him.” Painters implored him to be a model for some patriarch they designed to paint. Philanthropists looked on him as famous capital for a platform. He had once been town agent in the Circ.u.mlocution Office, and was well-to-do.

His face had a bloom on it like ripe wall-fruit, and his blue eyes seemed to be the eyes of wisdom and virtue. His whole face teemed with the look of benignity. n.o.body could say where the wisdom was, or where the virtue was, or where the benignity was, but they seemed to be somewhere about him.... He wore a long wide-skirted bottle-green coat, and a bottle-green pair of trousers, and a bottle-green waistcoat. The patriarchs were not dressed in bottle-green broadcloth, and yet his clothes looked patriarchal.--C. d.i.c.kens, _Little Dorrit_ (1857).

=Patrick=, an old domestic at Shaw's Castle.--Sir W. Scott, _St. Ronan's Well_ (time, George III.).

_Patrick_ (_St._), the tutelar saint of Ireland. Born at Kirk Patrick, near Dumbarton. His baptismal name was ”Succeath” (”valor in war”), changed by Milcho, to whom he was sold as a slave into ”Cotharig” (four families or four masters, to whom he had been sold). It was Pope Celestine who changed the name to ”Patricius,” when he sent him to convert the Irish.

Certainly the most marvellous of all the miracles ascribed to the saints is that recorded of St. Patrick. ”He swam across the Shannon with his head in his mouth!”

_Saint Patrick and King O'Neil._ One day, the saint set the end of his crozier on the foot of O'Neil, king of Ulster, and, leaning heavily on it, hurt the king's foot severely; but the royal convert showed no indication of pain or annoyance whatsoever.

A similar anecdote is told of St. Areed, who went to show the king of Abyssinia a musical instrument he had invented. His majesty rested the head of his spear on the saint's foot, and leaned with both his hands on the spear while he listened to the music. St. Areed, though his great toe was severely pierced, showed no sign of pain, but went on playing as if nothing was the matter.

_St. Patrick and the Serpent._ St[TN-70] Patrick cleared Ireland of vermin. One old serpent resisted, but St. Patrick overcame it by cunning. He made a box, and invited the serpent to enter in. The serpent insisted it was too small; and so high the contention grew that the serpent got into the box to prove that he was right, whereupon St.

Patrick slammed down the lid, and cast the box into the sea.

This tradition is marvellously like an incident of the _Arabian Nights'