Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama Part 98

_Punch_, the periodical. The first cover was designed by A. S. Henning; the present one by R. Doyle.

=Pure= (_Simon_), a Pennsylvanian Quaker. Being about to visit London to attend the quarterly meeting of his sect he brings with him a letter of introduction to Obadiah Prim, a rigid, stern Quaker, and the guardian of Anne Lovely, an heiress worth 30,000. Colonel Feignwell, availing himself of this letter of introduction, pa.s.ses himself off as Simon Pure, and gets established as the accepted suitor of the heiress.

Presently the real Simon Pure makes his appearance, and is treated as an impostor and swindler. The colonel hastens on the marriage arrangements, and has no sooner completed them than Master Simon re-appears, with witnesses to prove his ident.i.ty; but it is too late, and Colonel Feignwell freely acknowledges the "bold stroke he has made for a wife."--Mrs. Centlivre, _A Bold Stroke for a Wife_ (1717).

=Purefoy= (_Master_), former tutor of Dr. Anthony Rochecliffe, the plotting royalist.--Sir W. Scott, _Woodstock_ (time, Commonwealth).

=Purgatory=, by Dante, in thirty-three cantos (1308). Having emerged from h.e.l.l, Dante saw in the southern hemisphere four stars, "ne'er seen before, save by our first parents." The stars were symbolical of the four cardinal virtues (prudence, justice, fort.i.tude and temperance).

Turning round, he observed old Cato, who said that a dame from Heaven had sent him to prepare the Tuscan poet for pa.s.sing through Purgatory.

Accordingly, with a slender reed, old Cato girded him, and from his face he washed "all sordid stain," restoring to his face "that hue which the dun shades of h.e.l.l had covered and concealed" (canto i.). Dante then followed his guide, Virgil, to a huge mountain in mid-ocean antipodal to Judea, and began the ascent. A party of spirits were ferried over at the same time by an angel, amongst whom was Casella, a musician, one of Dante's friends. The mountain, he tells us, is divided into terraces, and terminates in Earthly Paradise, which is separated from it by two rivers--Lethe and Eu'noe (3 _syl._). The first eight cantos are occupied by the ascent, and then they come to the gate of Purgatory. This gate is approached by three stairs (faith, penitence and piety); the first stair is transparent white marble, as clear as crystal; the second is black and cracked; and the third is of blood-red porphyry (canto ix.). The porter marked on Dante's forehead seven P's (_peccata_, "sins"), and told him he would lose one at every stage, till he reached the river which divided Purgatory from Paradise. Virgil continued his guide till they came to Lethe, when he left him during sleep (canto x.x.x.). Dante was then dragged through the river Lethe, drank of the waters of Eunoe, and met Beatrice, who conducted him till he arrived at the "sphere of unbodied light," when she resigned her office to St. Bernard.

=Purgon=, one of the doctors in Moliere's comedy of _Le Malade Imaginaire_. When the patient's brother interfered, and sent the apothecary away with his clysters, Dr. Purgon got into a towering rage, and threatened to leave the house and never more visit it. He then said to the patient "Que vous tombiez dans la bradypepsie ... de la bradypepsie dans la dyspepsie ... de la dyspepsie dans l'apepsie ... de l'apepsie dans la lienterie ... de la lienterie dans la dyssenterie ...

de la dyssenterie dans l'hydropisie ... et de l'hydropisie dans la privation de la vie."

=Purita'ni= (_I_), "the puritans," that is Elvi'ra, daughter of Lord Walton, also a puritan, affianced to Ar'turo (_Lord Arthur Talbot_) a cavalier. On the day of espousals, Arturo aids Enrichetta (_Henrietta, widow of Charles I._), to escape; and Elvira, supposing that he is eloping, loses her reason. On his return, Arturo explains the facts to Elvira, and they vow nothing on earth shall part them more, when Arturo is arrested for treason, and led off to execution. At this crisis, a herald announces the defeat of the Stuarts, and Cromwell pardons all political offenders, whereupon Arturo is released, and marries Elvira.--Bellini's opera, _I Puritani_ (1834).

=Purley= (_Diversions of_), a work on the a.n.a.lysis and etymology of English words, so called from Purley, where it was written by John Horne. In 1782 he a.s.sumed the name of Tooke, from Mr. Tooke, of Purley, in Surrey, with whom he often stayed, and who left him 8000 (vol. i, 1785; vol. ii., 1805).

=Purple Island= (_The_), the human body. It is the name of a poem in twelve cantos, by Phineas Fletcher (1633). Canto i. Introduction. Cantos ii.-v. An anatomical description of the human body, considered as an island kingdom. Cantos vi. The "intellectual" man. Cantos vii. The "natural man," with its affections and l.u.s.ts. Canto viii. The world, the flesh, and the devil, as the enemies of man. Cantos ix., x. The friends of man who enable him to overcome these enemies. Cantos xi., xii. The battle of "Mansoul," the triumph, and the marriage of Eclecta. The whole is supposed to be sung to shepherds by Thirsil, a shepherd.

=Pusil'lus=, Feeble-mindedness personified in _The Purple Island_, by Phineas Fletcher (1633); "a weak, distrustful heart." Fully described in cantos viii. (Latin, _pusillus_, "pusillanimous.")

=Puss-in-Boots=, from Charles Perrault's tale _Le Chat Botte_ (1697).

Perrault borrowed the tale from the _Nights_ of Straparola, an Italian.

Straparola's _Nights_ were translated into French in 1585, and Perrault's _Contes de Fees_ were published in 1697. Ludwig Tieck, the German novelist, reproduced the same tale in his _Volksmarchen_ (1795), called in German _Der Gestiefelte Kater_. The cat is marvellously accomplished, and by ready wit or ingenious tricks secures a fortune and royal wife for his master, a penniless young miller, who pa.s.ses under the name of the marquis de Car'abas. In the Italian tale, puss is called "Constantine's cat."

=Pwyll's Bag= (_Prince_), a bag that it was impossible to fill.

Come thou in by thyself, clad in ragged garments, and holding a bag in thy hand, and ask nothing but a bagful of food, and I will cause that if all the meat and liquor that are in these seven cantreves were put into it, it would be no fuller than before.--_The Mabinogion_ (Pwyll[TN-112] Prince of Dyved," twelfth century).

=Pygma'lion=, a sculptor of Cyprus. He resolved never to marry, but became enamored of his own ivory statue, which Venus endowed with life, and the sculptor married. Morris has a poem on the subject in his _Earthly Paradise_ ("August"), and Gilbert a comedy.

Fell in loue with these, As did Pygmalion with his carved tree.

Lord Brooke, _Treatie on Human Learning_ (1554-1628).

? Lord Brooke calls the statue "a carved tree." There is a vegetable ivory, no doubt, one of the palm species, and there is the _ebon tree_, the wood of which is black as jet. The former could not be known to Pygmalion, but the latter might, as Virgil speaks of it in his _Georgics_, ii. 117, "India nigrum fert ebenum." Probably Lord Brooke blundered from the resemblance between _ebor_ ("ivory") and _ebon_, in Latin "ebenum."

=Pygmy=, a dwarf. The pygmies were a nation of dwarfs always at war with the cranes of Scythia. They were not above a foot high, and lived somewhere at the "end of the earth"--either in Thrace, Ethiopia, India, or the Upper Nile. The pygmy women were mothers at the age of three, and old women at eight. Their houses were built of egg-sh.e.l.ls. They cut down a blade of wheat with an axe and hatchet, as we fell huge forest trees.

One day, they resolved to attack Hercules in his sleep, and went to work as in a siege. An army attacked each hand, and the archers attacked the feet. Hercules awoke, and with the paw of his lion-skin overwhelmed the whole host, and carried them captive to King Eurystheus.

Swift has availed himself of this Grecian fable in his _Gulliver's Travels_ ("Lilliput," 1726).

=Pyke and Pluck= (_Messrs._), the tools and toadies of Sir Mulberry Hawk.

They laugh at all his jokes, snub all who attempt to rival their patron, and are ready to swear to anything Sir Mulberry wishes to have confirmed.--C. d.i.c.kens, _Nicholas Nickleby_ (1838).

=Pylades and Orestes=, inseparable friends. Pylades was a nephew of King Agamemnon, and Orestes was Agamemnon's son. The two cousins contracted a friendship which has become proverbial. Subsequently, Pylades married Orestes's sister, Electra.

Lagrange-Chancel has a French drama ent.i.tled _Oreste et Pylade_ (1695).

Voltaire also (_Oreste_, 1750). The two characters are introduced into a host of plays, Greek, Italian, French, and English. (See ANDROMACHE.)

=Pynchons= (_The_). _Mr. Pynchon_, a "representative of the highest and n.o.blest cla.s.s" in the Ma.s.sachusetts Colony; one of the first settlers in Agawam (Springfield, Ma.s.s.).

_Mrs. Pynchon_ (a second wife), a woman of excellent sense, with thorough reverence for her husband.

_Mary Pynchon_, beautiful and winning girl, afterward wedded to Elizur Holyoke.

_John Pynchon_, a promising boy.--J. G. Holland, _The Bay Path_ (1857).

=Pyncheon= (_Col._). An old bachelor, possessed of great wealth, and of an eccentric and melancholy turn of mind, the owner and tenant of the old Pyncheon mansion. He dies suddenly, after a life of selfish devotion to his own interests, and is thus found when the house is opened in the morning.--Nathaniel Hawthorne, _The House of the Seven Gables_ (1851).

=Pyrac'mon=, one of Vulcan's workmen in the smithy of Mount Etna. (Greek, _pur akmon_, "fire anvil.")

Far pa.s.sing Bronteus or Pyracmon great, The which in Lipari do day and night Frame thunderbolts for Jove.

Spenser, _Faery Queen_, iv. 5 (1596).

=Pyramid.= According to Diodo'rus Sic'ulus (_Hist._, i.), and Pliny (_Nat.

Hist._, x.x.xvi. 12), there were 360,000 men employed for nearly twenty years upon one of the pyramids.

The largest pyramid was built by Cheops or Suphis, the next largest by Cephrenes or Sen-Suphis, and the third by Mencheres, last king of the Fourth Egyptian dynasty, said to have lived before the birth of Abraham.

_The Third Pyramid._ Another tradition is that the third pyramid was built by Rhodopis or Rhodope, the Greek courtezan. Rhodopis means the "rosy-cheeked."

The Rhodope that built the pyramid.

Tennyson, _The Princess_, ii. (1830).

=Pyr'amos= (in Latin _Pyramus_), the lover of Thisbe. Supposing Thisbe had been torn to pieces by a lion, Pyramos stabs himself in his unutterable grief "under a mulberry tree." Here Thisbe finds the dead body of her lover, and kills herself for grief on the same spot. Ever since then the juice of this fruit has been blood-stained.--_Greek Mythology._