Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama Part 85

=Pluto=, the G.o.d of Hades.

Brothers, be of good cheer, for this night we shall sup with Pluto.--Leonidas, _To the Three Hundred at Thermopylae_.

=Plutus=, the G.o.d of wealth.--_Cla.s.sic Mythology._

Within a heart, dearer than Plutus' mine.

Shakespeare, _Julius Caesar_, act iv. sc. 3 (1607).

=Po= (_Tom_), a ghost. (Welsh, _bo_, "a hobgoblin.")

He now would pa.s.s for spirit Po.

S. Butler, _Hudibras_, iii. 1 (1678).

=Pocahontas=, daughter of Powhatan, an Indian chief of Virginia, who rescued Captain John Smith when her father was on the point of killing him. She subsequently married John Rolfe, and was baptized under the name of Rebecca (1595-1617).--_Old and New London_, ii. 481 (1876).

The Indian Princess is the heroine of John Brougham's drama, _Po-ca-hon-tas, or the Gentle Savage_.

=Pochet= (_Madame_), the French "Mrs. Gamp."--Henri Monnier.

=Pochi Dana'ri= ("_the pennyless_"). So the Italians call Maximilian I., emperor of Germany (1459, 1493-1519).

=Pocket= (_Mr. Matthew_), a real scholar, educated at Harrow, and an honor-man at Cambridge, but, having married young, he had to take up the calling of "grinder" and literary f.a.g for a living. Mr. Pocket, when annoyed, used to run his two hands into his hair, and seemed as if he intended to lift himself by it. His house was a hopeless muddle, the best meals and chief expense being in the kitchen. Pip was placed under the charge of this gentleman.

_Mrs. Pocket_ (_Belinda_), daughter of a City knight, brought up to be an ornamental nonent.i.ty, helpless, shiftless, and useless. She was the mother of eight children, whom she allowed to "tumble up" as best they could, under the charge of her maid, Flopson. Her husband, who was a poor gentleman, found life a very uphill work.

_Herbert Pocket_, son of Mr. Matthew Pocket, and an insurer of ships. He was a frank, easy young man, lithe and brisk, but not muscular. There was nothing mean or secretive about him. He was wonderfully hopeful, but had not the stuff to push his way into wealth. He was tall, slim, and pale; had a languor which showed itself even in his briskness; was most amiable, cheerful, and communicative. He called Pip "Handel," because Pip had been a blacksmith, and Handel composed a piece of music ent.i.tled _The Harmonious Blacksmith_. Pip helped him to a partnership in an agency business.

_Sarah Pocket_, sister of Matthew Pocket, a little dry, brown, corrugated old woman, with a small face that might have been made of walnut-sh.e.l.l, and a large mouth, like a cat's without the whiskers.--C.

d.i.c.kens, _Great Expectations_ (1860).

=Podgers= (_The_), lickspittles of the great.--J. Hollingshead, _The Birthplace of Podgers_.

=Podsnap= (_Mr._), "a too, too smiling large man, with a fatal freshness on him." Mr. Podsnap has "two little light-colored wiry wings, one on either side of his else bald head, looking as like his hair-brushes as his hair." On his forehead are generally "little red beads," and he wears "a large allowance of crumpled shirt-collar up behind."

_Mrs. Podsnap_, a "fine woman for Professor Owen: quant.i.ty of bone, neck, and nostrils like a rocking-horse, hard features, and majestic head-dress in which Podsnap has hung golden offerings."

_Georgiana Podsnap_, daughter of the above; called by her father "the young person." She is a harmless, inoffensive girl, "always trying to hide her elbows." Georgiana adores Mrs. Lammle, and when Mr. Lammle tries to marry the girl to Mr. Fledgeby, Mrs. Lammle induces Mr. Twemlow to speak to the father and warn him of the connection.

=Poe= (_Edgar Allen_). Poe's parents were actors, and in 1885, the actors of America erected a monument to the memory of the unhappy poet. The poem read at the dedication of the memorial was by _William Winter_.

"His music dies not, nor can ever die, Blown 'round the world by every wandering wind, The comet, lessening in the midnight sky, Still leaves its trail of glory far behind."

=Poem in Marble= (_A_), the Taj, a mausoleum of white marble, raised in Agra, by Shah Jehan, to his favorite, Shahrina Moomtaz-i-Mahul, who died in childbirth of her eighth child. It is also called "The Marble Queen of Sorrow."

=Poet= (_The Quaker_), Bernard Barton (1784-1849).

=Poet Sire of Italy=, Dante Alighieri (1265-1321).

=Poet Squab.= John Dryden was so called by the earl of Rochester, on account of his corpulence (1631-1701).

=Poet of France= (_The_), Pierre Ronsard (1524-1585).

=Poet of Poets=, Percy Bysshe Sh.e.l.ley (1792-1822).

=Poet of the Poor=, the Rev. George Crabbe (1754-1832).

=Poets= (_The prince of_). Edmund Spenser is so called on his monument in Westminster Abbey (1553-1598).

_Prince of Spanish Poets._ So Cervantes calls Garcilaso de la Vega (1503-1536).

=Poets of England.=

Addison, Beaumont, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning, Burns, Butler, Byron, Campbell, Chatterton, Chaucer, Coleridge, Collins, Congreve, Cowley, Cowper, Crabbe, Drayton, Dryden, Fletcher, Ford, Gay, Goldsmith, Gray, Mrs. Hemans, Herbert, Herrick, Hood, Ben Jonson, Keats, Keble, Landor, Marlowe, Marvel, Ma.s.singer, Milton, Moore, Otway, Pope, Prior, Rogers, Rowe, Scott, Shakespeare, Sh.e.l.ley, Shenstone, Southey, Spenser, Thomson, Waller, Wordsworth, Young. With many others of less celebrity.

=Poets' Corner=, in the south transept of Westminster Abbey. No one knows who christened the corner thus. With poets are divines, philosophers, actors, novelists, architects and critics.

The "corner" contains a bust, statue, tablet, or monument, to five of our first-rate poets: viz., Chaucer (1400), Dryden (1700), Milton (1674), Shakespeare (1616), and Spenser (1598); and some seventeen of second or third cla.s.s merit, as Addison, Beaumont (none to Fletcher), S.

Butler, Campbell, Cowley, c.u.mberland, Drayton, Gay, Gray, Goldsmith, Ben Jonson, Macaulay, Prior, Rowe, Sheridan, Thomson and Wordsworth.

? Dryden's monument was erected by Sheffield, duke of Buckingham.

Wordsworth's statue was erected by a public subscription.

=Poetry= (_The Father of_), Orpheus (2 _syl._) of Thrace.

_Father of Dutch Poetry_, Jakob Maerlant; also called "The Father of Flemish Poetry" (1235-1300).