Pamela is a work of much humbler pretensions than Clarissa Harlowe.... A simple country girl whom her master attempts to seduce, and afterwards marries.... The wardrobe of poor Pamela, her gown of sad-colored stuff, and her round-eared caps; her various attempts at escape, and the conveyance of her letters; the hateful character of Mrs. Jewkes, and the fluctuating passions of her master before the better part of his nature obtains ascendancy—these are all touched with the hand of a master.—Chambers, English Literature, ii. 161.
Pamina and Tam´ino, the two lovers who were guided by “the magic flute” through all worldly dangers to the knowledge of divine truth (or the mysteries of Iris).—Mosart, Die Zauberflöte (1790).
Pamphlet (Mr.), a penny-a-liner. His great wish was “to be taken up for sedition.” He writes on both sides, for as he says, he has “two hands, ambo dexter.”
“Time has been,” he says, “when I could turn a penny by an earthquake, or live upon a jail distemper, or dine upon a bloody murder; but now that’s all over—nothing will do now but roasting a minister, or telling the people they are ruined. The people of England are never so happy as when you tell them they are ruined.”—Murphy, The Upholsterer, ii. 1 (1758).
Pan, Nature personified, especially the vital crescent power of nature.
Universal Pan.
Knit with the Graces and the Hours in dance,
Led on the eternal spring.
Milton, Paradise Lost, iv. 266, etc. (1665).
Pan, in Spenser’s ecl. iv., is Henry VIII., and “Syrinx” is Anne Boleyn. In ecl. v. “Pan” stands for Jesus Christ in one passage, and for God the Father in another.—Spenser, Shepheardes Calendar (1572).
Pan (The Great), François M. A. de Voltaire; also called “The Dictator of Letters” (1694-1778).
Pancaste (3 syl.), or Campaspe, one of the concubines of Alexander the Great. Apellés fell in love with her while he was employed in painting the king of Macedon, and Alexander, out of regard to the artist, gave her to him for a wife. Apellês selected for his “Venus Rising from the Sea” (usually called “Venus Anadyomĕnê”) this beautiful Athenian woman, together with Phrynê, another courtezan.
*** Phrynê was also the academy figure for the “Cnidian Venus” of Praxitĕlês.