Part 66 (1/2)
_Trudchen_ or _Gertrude Pavillon_, their daughter, betrothed to Hans Glover.--Sir W. Scott, _Quentin Durward_ (time, Edward IV.).
=Pawkins= (_Major_), a huge, heavy man, ”one of the most remarkable of the age.” He was a great politician and great patriot, but generally under a cloud, wholly owing to his distinguished genius for bold speculations, not to say ”swindling schemes.” His creed was ”to run a moist pen slick through everything, and start afresh.”--C. d.i.c.kens, _Martin Chuzzlewit_ (1844).
=p.a.w.nbrokers' b.a.l.l.s.= The gilded b.a.l.l.s, the sign of p.a.w.nbrokers, are the pills on the s.h.i.+eld of the Medici family. Its founder, Cosmo, named after Saint Cosmo, the patron of physicians, joined the guild of the doctors (_Medici_), as every Florentine enrolled himself in one of these charitable societies. The Medici family became great money-lenders, and their s.h.i.+eld with the ”b.a.l.l.s” or ”pills” was placed over the doors of their agents.
=Paynim Harper= (_The_), referred to by Tennyson in the _Last Tournament_, was Orpheus.
Swine, goats, a.s.ses, rams and geese Troop'd round a Paynim harper once ...
Then were swine, goats, a.s.ses, geese The wiser fools, seeing thy Paynim bard Had such a mastery of his mystery That he could harp his wife up out of h.e.l.l.
Tennyson, _The Last Tournament_ (1859).
=Peace= (_Prince of the_), Don Manuel G.o.doy, born at Badajoz. So called because he concluded the ”peace of Basle” between the French and Spanish nations in 1795 (1767-1851).
_Peace_ (_The Father of_), Andrea Doria (1469-1560).
_Peace_ (_The Surest Way to_). Fox, afterwards bishop of Hereford, said to Henry VIII., _The surest way to peace is a constant preparation for war_. The Romans had the axiom, _Si vis pacem, para bellum_. It was said of Edgar, surnamed ”the Peaceful,” king of England, that he preserved peace in those turbulent times ”by being always prepared for war”
(reigned 959-975.)
=Peace Thirlmore=, ambitious daughter of a scholarly recluse near New Haven. She marries a clever student, who becomes a sensational preacher, then farmer, then an army officer. His wife pa.s.ses through many stages of belief and emotion, emerging at last into the suns.h.i.+ne.--W. M. Baker, _His Majesty, Myself_ (1879).
=Peace at any Price.= Mezeray says of Louis XII., that he had such detestation of war that he rather chose to lose his duchy of Milan than burden his subjects with a war-tax.--_Histoire de France_ (1643).
=Peace of Antal'cidas=, the peace concluded by Antalcidas, the Spartan, and Artaxerxes (B.C. 387).
=Peace of G.o.d=, a peace enforced by the clergy on the barons of Christendom, to prevent the perpetual feuds between baron and baron (1035).
=Peach'um=, a pimp, patron of a gang of thieves, and receiver of their stolen goods. His house is the resort of thieves, pickpockets, and villains of all sorts. He betrays his comrades when it is for his own benefit, and even procures the arrest of Captain Macheath.
_Mrs. Peachum_, wife of Peachum. She recommends her daughter Polly to be ”somewhat nice in her deviations from virtue.”
_Polly Peachum_, daughter of Peachum. (See POLLY.)--J. Gay, _The Beggar's Opera_ (1727).
=Pearl= (_Little_), illegitimate child of Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale. A piquant, tricksy sprite, as naughty as she is bewitching--a creature of fire and air, more elfish than human, at once her mother's torment and her treasure.--Nathaniel Hawthorne, _The Scarlet Letter_ (1850).
=Pearl.= It is said that Cleopatra swallowed a pearl of more value than the whole of the banquet she had provided in honor of Antony. This she did when she drank to his health. The same sort of extravagant folly is told of aesopus, son of Clodius aesopus, the actor (Horace, _Satire_, ii.
3).
A similar act of vanity and folly is ascribed to Sir Thomas Gresham, when Queen Elizabeth dined at the City banquet, after her visit to the Royal Exchange.