Part 92 (1/2)

The mistress of Charles Edward Stuart was Miss Walkingshaw.

=Prettyman= (_Prince_), in love with Cloris. He is sometimes a fisherman, and sometimes a prince.--Duke of Buckingham, _The Rehearsal_ (1671).

? ”Prince Prettyman” is said to be a parody on ”Leonidas” in Dryden's _Marriage-a-la-mode_.

=Pri'amus= (_Sir_), a knight of the Round Table. He possessed a phial, full of four waters that came from paradise. These waters instantly healed any wounds which were touched by them.

”My father,” says Sir Priamus, ”is lineally descended of Alexander and of Hector by right line. Duke Josue and Machabaeus were of our lineage. I am right inheritor of Alexandria, and Affrike of all the out isles.”

And Priamus took from his page a phial, full of four waters that came out of paradise; and with certain balm nointed he their wounds, and washed them with that water, and within an hour after they were both as whole as ever they were.--Sir T. Malory, _History of Prince Arthur_, i. 97 (1470).

=Price= (_Matilda_), a miller's daughter; a pretty, coquettish young woman, who marries John Browdie, a hearty Yorks.h.i.+re corn-factor.--C.

d.i.c.kens, _Nicholas Nickleby_ (1838).

=Pride= (_Sir_), first a drayman, then a colonel in the parliamentary army.--S. Butler, _Hudibras_ (1663-78).

=Pride of Humility.= Antisthenes, the Cynic, affected a very ragged coat; but Socrates said to him, ”Antisthenes, I can see your vanity peering through the holes of your coat.”

=Pride's Purge=, a violent invasion of parliamentary rights by Colonel Pride, in 1649. At the head of two regiments of soldiers he surrounded the House of Commons, seized forty-one of the members and shut out 160 others. None were allowed into the House but those most friendly to Cromwell. This f.a.g-end went by the name of ”the Rump.”

=Pridwin= or PRIWEN, Prince Arthur's s.h.i.+eld.

Arthur placed a golden helmet upon his head, on which was engraven the figure of a dragon; and on his shoulders his s.h.i.+eld, called Priwen, upon which the picture of the blessed Mary, mother of G.o.d, was painted; then, girding on his Caliburn, which was an excellent sword, made in the isle of Avallon; he took in his right hand his lance, Ron, which was hard, broad, and fit for slaughter.--Geoffrey, _British History_, ix. 4 (1142).

=Priest of Nature=, Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727).

Lo! Newton, priest of nature, s.h.i.+nes afar, Scans the wide world, and numbers every star.

Campbell, _Pleasures of Hope_, i. (1799).

=Prig=, a knavish beggar.--Beaumont and Fletcher, _The Beggars' Bush_ (1622).

_Prig_ (_Betsey_), an old monthly nurse, ”the frequent pardner” of Mrs.

Gamp; equally ignorant, equally vulgar, equally selfish, and brutal to her patients.

”Betsey,” said Mrs. Gamp, filling her own gla.s.s, and pa.s.sing the teapot [_of gin_], ”I will now propoge a toast: 'My frequent pardner, Betsey Prig.'” ”Which, altering the name to Sairah Gamp, I drink,” said Mrs. Prig, ”with love and tenderness.”--C. d.i.c.kens, _Martin Chuzzlewit_, xlix. (1843).

=Prim'er= (_Peter_), a pedantic country schoolmaster, who believes himself to be the wisest of pedagogues.--Samuel Foote, _The Mayor of Garratt_ (1763).

=Primitive Fathers= (_The_). The five apostolic fathers contemporary with the apostles (viz., Clement of Rome, Barnabas, Hermas, Ignatius and Polycarp), and the nine following, who all lived in the first three centuries:--Justin, Theoph'ilus of Antioch, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Cyprian of Carthage, Origen, Gregory ”Thaumatur'gus,”

Dionysius of Alexandria and Tertullian.