Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama Part 96

=Proud= (_The_). Tarquin II. of Rome, was called _Superbus_ (reigned B.C.

535-510, died 496).

Otho IV., kaiser of Germany, was called "The Proud" (1175, 1209-1218).

=Proud Duke= (_The_), Charles Seymour, duke of Somerset. His children were not allowed to sit in his presence; and he spoke to his servants by signs only (*-1748).

=Proudfute= (_Oliver_), the boasting bonnet-maker at Perth.

_Magdalen_ or _Maudie Proudfute_, Oliver's widow.--Sir W. Scott, _Fair Maid of Perth_ (time, Henry IV.).

=Proudie= (_Dr._), hen-pecked bishop of Barchester. A martinet in his diocese, a serf in his home.

_Proudie_ (_Mrs._), strong-willed, strong-voiced help-mate of the bishop. She lays down social, moral, religious and ecclesiastical laws with equal readiness and severity.--Anthony Trollope, _Framley Parsonage_ and _Barchester Towers_.

=Prout= (_Father_), the pseudonym of Francis Mahoney, a humorous writer in _Fraser's Magazine_, etc. (1805-1866).

=Provis=, the name a.s.sumed by Abel Magwitch, Pip's benefactor. He was a convict, who had made a fortune, and whose chief desire was to make his protege[TN-108] a gentleman.--C. d.i.c.kens, _Great Expectations_ (1860).

=Provoked Husband= (_The_), a comedy by Cibber and Vanbrugh. The "provoked husband" is Lord Townly, justly annoyed at the conduct of his young wife, who wholly neglects her husband and her home duties for a life of gambling and dissipation. The husband seeing no hope of amendment, resolves on a separate maintenance; but then the lady's eyes are opened--she promises amendment, and is forgiven[TN-109]

? This comedy was Vanbrugh's _Journey to London_, left unfinished at his death. Cibber took it, completed it, and brought it out under the t.i.tle of _The Provoked Husband_ (1728).

=Provoked Wife= (_The_), Lady Brute, the wife of Sir John Brute, is, by his ill manners, brutality, and neglect, "provoked" to intrigue with one Constant. The intrigue is not of a very serious nature, since it is always interrupted before it makes head. At the conclusion, Sir John says:

Surly, I may be stubborn, I am not, For I have both forgiven and forgot.

Sir J. Vanbrugh (1697).

=Provost of Bruges= (_The_), a tragedy based on "The Serf," in Leitch Ritchie's _Romance of History_. Published anonymously in 1836; the author is S. Knowles. The plot is this: Charles "the Good," earl of Flanders, made a law that a serf is always a serf till manumitted, and whoever marries a serf, becomes thereby a serf. Thus, if a prince married the daughter of a serf, the prince becomes a serf himself, and all his children were serfs. Bertulphe, the richest, wisest, and bravest man in Flanders, was provost of Bruges. His beautiful daughter, Constance, married Sir Bouchard, a knight of n.o.ble descent; but Bertulphe's father had been Thancmar's serf, and, according to the new law, Bertulphe, the provost, his daughter, Constance, and the knightly son-in-law were all the serfs of Thancmar. The provost killed the earl, and stabbed himself; Bouchard and Thancmar killed each other in fight; and Constance died demented.

=Prowler= (_Hugh_), any vagrant or highwayman.

For fear of Hugh Prowler, get home with the rest.

T. Tusser, _Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry_, x.x.xiii. 25 (1557).

=Prudence= (_Mistress_), the lady attendant on Violet, ward of Lady Arundel. When Norman, "the sea-captain," made love to Violet, Mistress Prudence remonstrated, "What will the countess say if I allow myself to see a stranger speaking to her ward?" Norman clapped a guinea on her left eye, and asked, "What see you now?" "Why, nothing with my left eye," she answered, "but the right has still a morbid sensibility."

"Poor thing!" said Norman; "this golden ointment soon will cure it. What see you now, my Prudence?" "Not a soul," she said.--Lord Lytton, _The Sea-Captain_ (1839).

=Prudhomme= (_Joseph_), "pupil of Brard and Saint-Omer,"

caligraphist[TN-110] and sworn expert in the courts of law. Joseph Prudhomme is the synthesis of bourgeois imbecility; radiant, serene, and self-satisfied; letting fall from his fat lips "one weak, washy, everlasting flood" of puerile aphorisms and inane circ.u.mlocutions. He says, "The car of the state floats on a precipice." "This sword is the proudest day of my life."--Henri Monnier, _Grandeur et Decadence de Joseph Prudhomme_ (1852).

=Pruddoterie= (_Madame de la_). Character in comedy of _George Dandin_, by Moliere.

=Prue= (_Miss_), a schoolgirl still under the charge of a nurse, very precocious and very injudiciously brought up. Miss Prue is the daughter of Mr. Foresight, a mad astrologer, and Mrs. Foresight, a frail nonent.i.ty.--Congreve, _Love for Love_ (1695).

_Prue._ Wife of "I"; a dreamer. "Prue makes everything think well, even to making the neighbors speak well of her."

Of himself Prue's husband says:

"How queer that a man who owns castles in Spain should be deputy book-keeper at $900 per annum!"--George William Curtis, _Prue and I_ (1856).

=Prunes and Prisms=, the words which give the lips the right plie of the highly aristocratic mouth, as Mrs. General tells Amy Dorrit.

"'Papa' gives a pretty form to the lips. 'Papa,' 'potatoes,'

'poultry,' 'prunes and prisms.' You will find it serviceable if you say to yourself on entering a room, 'Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prisms.'"--C. d.i.c.kens, _Little Dorrit_ (1855).

General Burgoyne, in _The Heiress_, makes Lady Emily tell Miss Alscrip that the magic words are "nimini pimini;" and that if she will stand before her mirror and p.r.o.nounce these words repeatedly, she cannot fail to give her lips that happy plie which is known as the "Paphian mimp."--_The Heiress_, iii. 2 (1781).

=Pru'sio=, king of Alvarecchia, slain by Zerbi'no.--Ariosto, _Orlando Furioso_ (1516).

=Pry= (_Paul_), one of those idle, meddling fellows, who, having no employment of their own, are perpetually interfering in the affairs of other people.--John Poole, _Paul Pry_.

=Prydwen= or PRIDWIN (_q.v._), called in the _Mabinogion_, the s.h.i.+p of King Arthur. It was also the name of his s.h.i.+eld. Taliessin speaks of it as a s.h.i.+p, and Robert of Gloucester as a s.h.i.+eld.

Hys sseld that het Prydwen.

Myd ye suerd he was ygurd, that so strong was and kene; Calybourne yt was ycluped, nas nour no such ye wene.

In ys right hond ys lance he nom, that ycluped was Ron.

I. 174.

=Prynne= (_Hester_). Handsome, haughty gentlewoman of English birth, married to a deformed scholar, whom she does not love. She comes alone to Boston, meets Arthur Dimmesdale, a young clergyman, and becomes his wife in all except in name. When her child is born she is condemned to stand in the pillory, holding it in her arms, to be reprimanded by officials, civic and clerical, and to wear, henceforward, upon her breast, the letter "A" in scarlet. Her fate is more enviable than that of her undiscovered lover, whose vacillations of dread and despair and determination to reveal all but move Hester to deeper pity and stronger love. She is beside him when he dies in the effort to bare his bosom and show the cancerous _Scarlet Letter_ that has grown into his flesh while she wore hers outwardly.--Nathaniel Hawthorne, _The Scarlet Letter_ (1850).

=Psalmist= (_The_). King David is called "The Sweet Psalmist of Israel" (2 _Sam._ xxiii. 1). In the compilation called _Psalms_, in the Old Testament, seventy-three bear the name of David, twelve were composed by Asaph, eleven by the sons of Korah, and one (_Psalm_ xc.) by Moses.

=Psycarpax= (_i. e._ "_granary-thief_"), son of Troxartas, king of the mice. The frog king offered to carry the young Psycarpax over a lake; but a water-hydra made its appearance, and the frog-king, to save himself, dived under water, whereby the mouse prince lost his life. This catastrophe brought about the fatal _Battle of the Frogs and Mice_.

Translated from the Greek into English verse by Parnell (1679-1717).