Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama Part 59

_Pam'ela_ [ANDREWS], a simple, unsophisticated country girl, the daughter of two aged parents, and maid-servant of a rich young squire, called B, who tries to seduce her. She resists every temptation, and at length marries the young squire, and reforms him. Pamela is very pure and modest, bears her afflictions with much meekness, and is a model of maidenly prudence and rect.i.tude. The story is told in a series of letters which Pamela sends to her parents.--S. Richardson, _Pamela_, or _Virtue Rewarded_ (1740).

The pure and modest character of the English maiden [_Pamela_] is so well maintained, ... her sorrows and afflictions are borne with so much meekness; her little intervals of hope ... break in on her troubles so much like the specks of blue sky through a cloudy atmosphere--that the whole recollection is soothing, tranquilizing, and doubtless edifying.--Sir W. Scott.

_Pamela_ is a work of much humbler pretensions than _Clarissa Harlowe_.... A simple country girl whom her master attempts to seduce, and afterwards marries.... The wardrobe of poor Pamela, her gown of sad-colored stuff, and her round-eared caps; her various attempts at escape, and the conveyance of her letters; the hateful character of Mrs. Jewkes, and the fluctuating pa.s.sions of her master before the better part of his nature obtains ascendancy--these are all touched with the hand of a master.--Chambers, _English Literature_, ii. 161.

=Pamina and Tam'ino=, the two lovers who were guided by "the magic flute"

through all worldly dangers to the knowledge of divine truth (or the mysteries of Iris).--Mosart,[TN-61] _Die Zauberflote_ (1790).

=Pamphlet= (_Mr._), a penny-a-liner. His great wish was "to be taken up for sedition." He writes on both sides, for as he says, he has "two hands, _ambo dexter_."

"Time has been," he says, "when I could turn a penny by an earthquake, or live upon a jail distemper, or dine upon a b.l.o.o.d.y murder; but now that's all over--nothing will do now but roasting a minister, or telling the people they are ruined. The people of England are never so happy as when you tell them they are ruined."--Murphy, _The Upholsterer_, ii. 1 (1758).

=Pan=, Nature personified, especially the vital crescent power of nature.

Universal Pan.

Knit with the Graces and the Hours in dance, Led on the eternal spring.

Milton, _Paradise Lost_, iv. 266, etc. (1665).

_Pan_, in Spenser's ecl. iv., is Henry VIII., and "Syrinx" is Anne Boleyn. In ecl. v. "Pan" stands for Jesus Christ in one pa.s.sage, and for G.o.d the Father in another.--Spenser, _Shepheardes Calendar_ (1572).

_Pan_ (_The Great_), Francois M. A. de Voltaire; also called "The Dictator of Letters" (1694-1778).

=Pancaste= (3 _syl._), or CAMPASPE, one of the concubines of Alexander the Great. Apelles fell in love with her while he was employed in painting the king of Macedon, and Alexander, out of regard to the artist, gave her to him for a wife. Apelles selected for his "Venus Rising from the Sea" (usually called "Venus Anadyomene") this beautiful Athenian woman, together with Phryne, another courtezan.

? Phryne was also the academy figure for the "Cnidian Venus" of Praxiteles.

=Pancks=, a quick, short, eager, dark man, with too much "way." He dressed in black and rusty iron grey; had jet-black beads for eyes, a scrubby little black chin, wiry black hair striking out from his head in p.r.o.ngs like hair-pins, and a complexion that was very dingy by nature, or very dirty by art, or a compound of both. He had dirty hands, and dirty, broken nails, and looked as if he had been in the coals. He snorted and sniffed, and puffed and blew, and was generally in a perspiration. It was Mr. Pancks who "moled out" the secret that Mr. Dorrit, imprisoned for debt in the Marshalsea prison, was heir-at-law to a great estate, which had long lain unclaimed, and was extremely rich (ch. x.x.xv.). Mr.

Pancks also induced Clennam to invest in Merdle's bank shares, and demonstrated by figures the profit he would realize; but the bank being a bubble the shares were worthless.--C. d.i.c.kens, _Little Dorrit_ (1857).

=Pancrace=, a doctor of the Aristotelian school. He maintained that it was improper to speak of the "_form_ of a hat," because form "est la disposition exterieure des corps qui sont animes," and therefore we should say the "_figure_ of a hat," because figure "est la disposition exterieure des corps qui sont inanimes;" and because his adversary could not agree, he called him "un ignorant, un ignorantissime, ignorantifiant, et ignorantifie"[TN-62] (sc. viii.).--Moliere, _Le Mariage Force_ (1664).

=Pancras= (_The earl of_), one of the skillful companions of Barlow, the famous archer; another was called the "Marquis of Islington;" while Barlow himself was mirthfully created by Henry VIII., "Duke of Sh.o.r.editch."

_Pancras_ (_St._), patron saint of children, martyred by Diocletian at the age of 14 (A.D. 304).

=Pan'darus=, the Lycian, one of the allies of Priam in the Trojan war. He is drawn under two widely different characters: In cla.s.sic story he is depicted as an admirable archer, slain by Diomed, and honored as a hero-G.o.d in his own country; but in mediaeval romance he is represented as a despicable pimp, insomuch that the word _pander_ is derived from his name. Chaucer, in his _Trolus and Cresseide_, and Shakespeare, in his drama of _Troilus and Cressida_, represent him as procuring for Troilus the good graces of Cressid, and in _Much Ado About Nothing_, it is said that Troilus "was the first employer of pandars."

=Pandemo'nium=, "the high capital of Satan and his peers." Here the infernal parliament was held, and to this council Satan convened the fallen angels to consult with him upon the best method of encompa.s.sing the "fall of man." Satan ultimately undertook to visit the new world; and, in the disguise of a serpent, he tempted Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit.--Milton, _Paradise Lost_, ii. (1665).

=Pandi'on=, king of Athens, father of Procne and Philome'la.

None take pity on thy pain; Senseless trees, they cannot hear thee; Ruthless bears, they will not cheer thee; King Pandion he is dead; All thy friends are lapped in lead.

Richard Barnfield, _Address to the Nightingale_ (1594).

=Pandolf= (_Sir Harry_), the teller of whole strings of stories, which he repeats at every gathering. He has also a stock of _bon-mots_. "Madam,"

said he, "I have lost by you to-day." "How so, Sir Harry!" replies the lady. "Why, madam," rejoins the baronet, "I have lost an excellent appet.i.te." "This is the thirty-third time that Sir Harry hath been thus arch."

We are constantly, after supper, entertained with the Glas...o...b..ry Thorn. When we have wondered at that a little, "Father," saith the son, "let us have the Spirit in the Wood." After that, "Now tell us how you served the robber." "Alack!" saith Sir Harry, with a smile, "I have almost forgotten that; but it is a pleasant conceit, to be sure;" and accordingly he tells that and twenty more in the same order over and over again.--Richard Steele.

=Pandolfe= (2 _syl._), father of Lelie.--Moliere, _L'Etourdi_ (1653).

=Pando'ra=, the "all-gifted woman." So called because all the G.o.ds bestowed some gift on her to enhance her charms. Jove sent her to Prometheus for a wife, but Hermes gave her in marriage to his brother, Epime'theus (4 _syl._). It is said that Pandora enticed the curiosity of Epimetheus to open a box in her possession, from which flew out all the ills that flesh is heir to. Luckily the lid was closed in time to prevent the escape of Hope.

More lovely than Pandora, whom the G.o.ds Endowed with all their gifts, ... to the unwiser son Of j.a.phet brought by Hermes, she ensnared Mankind with her fair looks, to be avenged On him [_Prometheus_] who had stole Jove's ... fire.

Milton, _Paradise Lost_, iv. 714, etc. (1665).

? "Unwiser son" is a Latinism, and means "not so wise as he should have been;" so _audacior_, _timidior_, _vehementior_, _iracundior_, etc.

=Pandos'to=, or _The Triumph of Time_, a tale by Robert Greene (1588), the quarry of the plot of _The Winter's Tale_ by Shakespeare.

=Panel= (_The_), by J. Kemble, is a modified version of Bickerstaff's comedy _'Tis Well 'tis no Worse_. It contains the popular quotation:

Perhaps it was right to dissemble your love; But why do you kick me downstairs?

=Pangloss= (_Dr. Peter_), an LL.D. and A.S.S. He began life as a m.u.f.fin-maker in Milk Alley. Daniel Dowlas, when he was raised from the chandler's shop in Gosport to the peerage, employed the doctor "to larn him to talk English;" and subsequently made him tutor to his son d.i.c.k, with a salary of 300 a year. Dr. Pangloss was a literary prig of ponderous pomposity. He talked of a "locomotive morning," of one's "sponsorial and patronymic appellations," and so on; was especially fond of quotations, to all of which he a.s.signed the author, as "Lend me your ears. Shakespeare. Hem!" or "_Verb.u.m sat._ Horace. Hem!" He also indulged in an affected "He! he!"--G. Colman, _The Heir-at-Law_ (1797).

A.S.S. stands for _Artium Societatis Socius_ ("Fellow of the Society of Arts").

_Pangloss_, an optimist philosopher. (The word means "All Tongue.")--Voltaire, _Candide_.

=Panjam=, a male idol of the Oroungou tribes of Africa; his wife is Aleka, and his priests are called _panjans_. Panjam is the special protector of kings and governments.

=Panjandrum= (_The Grand_), and village potentate or Brummagem magnate.

The word occurs in S. Foote's farrago of nonsense, which he wrote to test the memory of old Macklin, who said in a lecture "he had brought his own memory to such perfection that he could learn anything by rote on once hearing it."

He was the Great Panjandrum of the place.--Percy Fitzgerald.

? The squire of a village is the Grand Panjandrum, and the small gentry the Picninnies, Joblillies, and Garyulies.