Parnell, Thomas, Archdeacon of Clogher, satirist and translator. He was a sweet and easy poet with a high moral tone; friend of Addison and Swift (1679-1718)
Parson Barnabas, Parson Trulliber (see Fielding’s Joseph Andrews)
Pasquin, Antony, a fifteenth-century Italian tailor, noted for his caustic wit
Paulician Theology originated in Armenia, and flourished c.660-970 A.D. Besides certain Manichee elements it denied the deity of Jesus and abjured Mariolatry and the sacraments
Pescara, Marquis of, an Italian general who betrayed to the emperor, Charles V., the plot of Francesco Sforza for driving the Spaniards and Germans out of Italy
Peter Martyr, a name borne by three personages. The reference here is to the Italian Protestant reformer who made his home successively in Switzerland, England, Strasburg, and Zurich (d. 1562)
Phidias, Athens’s greatest sculptor. A contemporary of Pericles (d. 432 B. C.)
Philips, John, best remembered by The Splendid Shilling, a good burlesque in imitation of Milton (1676-1708)
Pilpay, the Indian Aesop. For the pedigree of the Pilpay literature, see Jacobs: Fables of Bidpai (1888), 641
Pisistratus and Gelon, two able Grecian tyrants who ruled beneficially at Athens (541-527 B.C.), and at Syracuse (484-473 B.C.), respectively