Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama Part 70

=Penniman= (_Wolfert_). Young captain of the Mayga in _Outward Bound_.--W.

T. Adams (Oliver Optic).

=Penny= (_Jock_), a highwayman.--Sir W. Scott, _Guy Mannering_ (time, George II.).

=Penruddock= (_Roderick_), a "philosopher," or rather a recluse, who spent his time in reading. By nature gentle, kind-hearted, and generous, but soured by wrongs. Woodville, his trusted friend, although he knew that Arabella was betrothed to Roderick, induced her father to give his daughter to himself, the richer man; and Roderick's life was blasted.

Woodville had a son, who reduced himself to positive indigence by gambling. Sir George Penruddock was the chief creditor. Sir George dying, all his property came to his cousin, Roderick, who now had ample means to glut his revenge on his treacherous friend; but his heart softened. First, he settled all "the obligations, bonds, and mortgages, covering the whole Woodville property," on Henry Woodville, that he might marry Emily Tempest; and next, he restored to Mrs. Woodville "her settlement, which in her husband's desperate necessity, she had resigned to him;" lastly, he sold all his own estates, and retired again to a country cottage to his books and solitude.--c.u.mberland, _The Wheel of Fortune_ (1779).

=Pentap'oliff=, "with the naked arm," king of the Garaman'teans, who always went to battle with his right arm bare. Alifanfaron, emperor of Trap'oban, wished to marry his daughter, but, being refused, resolved to urge his suit by the sword. When Don Quixote saw two flocks of sheep coming along the road in opposite directions, he told Sancho Panza they were the armies of these two puissant monarchs met in array against each other.--Cervantes, _Don Quixote_, I. iii. 4 (1605).

=Pentecote Vivante= (_La_), Cardinal Mezzofanti, who was the master of fifty or fifty-eight languages (1774-1849).

=Penthe'a=, sister of Ith'ocles, betrothed to Or'gilus by the consent of her father. At the death of her father, Ithocles compelled her to marry Ba.s.s'anes, whom she hated, and she starved herself to death.--John Ford, _The Broken Heart_ (1633).

=Penthesile'a=, queen of the Amazons, slain by Achilles. S. Butler calls the name "Penthes'ile."

And laid about in fight more busily Than th' Amazonian dame Penthesile.

S. Butler, _Hudibras_.

=Pen'theus= (3 _syl._), a king of Thebes, who tried to abolish the orgies of Bacchus, but was driven mad by the offended G.o.d. In his madness he climbed into a tree to witness the rites, and being descried was torn to pieces by the Bacchantes.

As when wild Pentheus, grown mad with fear, Whole troops of h.e.l.lish hags about him spies.

Giles Fletcher, _Christ's Triumph over Death_ (1610).

_Pentheus_ (2 _syl._), a king of Thebes, resisted the introduction of the worship of Dyoni'sos (_Bacchus_) into his kingdom, in consequence of which the Bacchantes pulled his palace to the ground, and Pentheus, driven from the throne, was torn to pieces on Mount Cithaeron by his own mother and her two sisters.

He the fate [_may sing_]

Of sober Pentheus.

Akenside, _Hymn to the Naiads_ (1767).

=Pentweazel= (_Alderman_), a rich city merchant of Blowbladder Street. He is wholly submissive to his wife, whom he always addresses as "Chuck."

_Mrs. Pentweazel_, the alderman's wife, very ignorant, very vain, and very conceitedly humble. She was a Griskin by birth, and "all her family by the mother's side were famous for their eyes." She had an aunt among the beauties of Windsor, "a perdigious fine woman. She had but one eye, but that was a piercer, and got her three husbands. We was called the gimlet family." Mrs. Pentweazel says her first likeness was done after "Venus de Medicis, the sister of Mary de Medicis."

_Sukey Pentweazel_, daughter of the alderman, recently married to Mr.

Deputy Dripping, of Candlewick Yard.

_Carel Pentweazel_, a schoolboy, who had been under Dr. Jerks, near Doncaster, for two years and a quarter, and had learnt all _As in Praesenti_ by heart. The terms of this school were 10 a year for food, books, board, clothes and tuition.--Foote, _Taste_ (1753).

=People= (_Man of the_), Charles James Fox (1749-1806).

=Pepin= (_William_), a White Friar and most famous preacher at the beginning of the sixteenth century. His sermons, in eight volumes quarto, formed the grand repertory of the preachers of those times.

=Pepita=, Spanish beauty of whom the poet sings:

I, who dwell over the way Watch where Pepita is hid, Safe from the glare of the day, Like an eye under its lid; Over and over I say-- Name like the song of a bird, Melody shut in a word-- "Pepita!"

Frank Dempster Sherman, _Madrigals and Catches_ (1887).

=Pepperpot= (_Sir Peter_), a West Indian epicure, immensely rich, conceited and irritable.--Foote, _The Patron_ (1764).

=Peppers.= (See WHITE HORSE OF THE PEPPERS.)

=Peps= (_Dr[TN-81] Parker_), a court physician who attended the first Mrs.

Dombey on her death-bed. Dr. Peps always gave his patients (by mistake, of course), a t.i.tle, to impress them with the idea that his practice was exclusively confined to the upper ten thousand.--C. d.i.c.kens, _Dombey and Son_ (1846).

=Perceforest= (_King_), the hero of a prose romance "in Greek." The MS. is said to have been found by Count William of Hainault in a cabinet at "Burtimer" Abbey, on the Humber; and in the same cabinet was deposited a crown, which the count sent to King Edward. The MS. was turned into Latin by St. Landelain, and thence into French under the t.i.tle of _La Tres Elegante Deliceux Melliflue et Tres Plaisante Hystoire du Tres n.o.ble Roy Perceforest_ (printed at Paris in 1528).

(Of course, this pretended discovery is only an invention. An a.n.a.lysis of the romance is given in Dunlop's _History of fiction_.)

He was called "Perceforest," because he dared to _pierce_, almost alone, an enchanted _forest_, where women and children were most evilly treated. Charles IX., of France, was especially fond of this romance.

=Perch=, messenger in the house of Mr. Dombey, merchant, whom he adored, and plainly showed by his manner to the great man: "You are the light of my eyes," "You are the breath of my soul."--C. d.i.c.kens, _Dombey and Son_ (1846).

=Perche Notary= (_A_), a lawyer who sets people together by the ears, one who makes more quarrels than contracts. The French proverb is, _Notaire du Perche, qui pa.s.se plus d'echalliers que de contrat_.

Le Perche, qui se trouve partage entre les departements de l'Orne et d'Eure-et-Loir, est un contree fort boisee, dans laquelle la plupart des champs sont entoures de haies dans lesquelles sont menagees certaines ouvertures propres a donner pa.s.sage aux pietons seulement, et que l'on nomme _echalliers_.--_Hilaire le Gai._

=Percinet=, a fairy prince, in love with Graciosa. The prince succeeds in thwarting the malicious designs of Grognon, the step-mother of the lovely princess.--_Percinet and Graciosa_ (a fairy tale).

=Percival= (_Sir_), the third son of Sir Pellinore, king of Wales. His brothers were Sir Aglavale and Sir Lamorake Dornar, usually called Sir Lamorake de Galis (_Wales_). Sir Tor was his half-brother. Sir Percival caught a sight of the Holy Graal after his combat with Sir Ector de Maris (brother of Sir Launcelot), and both were miraculously healed by it. Cretien de Troyes wrote the _Roman de Perceval_ (before 1200), and Menessier produced the same story in a metrical form. (See PARZIVAL.)

Sir Percivale had a glimmering of the Sancgreall and of the maiden that bare it, for he was perfect and clean. And forthwith they were both as whole of limb and hide as ever they were in their life days. "O, mercy!" said Sir Percival, "what may this mean?" ... "I wot well," said Sir Ector ... "it is the holy vessel, wherein is a part of the holy blood of our blessed Saviour; but it may not be seen but by a perfect man."--Pt. iii. 14.

Sir Percival was with Sir Bors and Sir Galahad, when the visible Saviour went into the consecrated wafer which was given to them by the bishop.

This is called the achievement of the quest of the Holy Graal (pt. iii.

101, 102.[TN-82]--Sir T. Malory, _History of Prince Arthur_ (1470).