This tradition is marvellously like an incident of the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments. A fisherman had drawn up a box or vase in his net, and on breaking it open a genius issued therefrom, and threatened the fisherman with immediate destruction because he had been enclosed so long. Said the fisherman to the genius, “I wish to know whether you really were in that vase.” “I certainly was,” said the genius. “I cannot believe it,” replied the fisherman, “for the vase could not contain even one of your feet.” Then the genius, to prove his assertion, changed into smoke, and entered into the vase, saying, “Now, incredulous fisherman, dost thou believe me?” But the fisherman clapped the leaden cover on the vase, and told the genius that he was about to throw the box into the sea, and that he would build a house on the spot to warn others not to fish up so wicked a genius.—Arabian Nights (“The Fisherman,” one of the early tales).
*** St. Patrick, I fear, had read the Arabian Nights, and stole a leaf from the fisherman’s book.
St. Patrick a Gentleman.
Oh, St. Patrick was a gentleman,
Who came of dacent people ...
This song was written by Messrs. Bennet and Toleken, of Cork, and was first sung by them at a masquerade in 1814. It was afterwards lengthened for Webbe, the comedian, who made it popular.
Patriot King (The), Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751). He hired Mallet to traduce Pope after his decease, because the poet refused to give up certain copies of a work which the statesman wished to have destroyed.
Write as if St. John’s soul could still inspire,
And do from hate what Mallet did for hire.
Byron, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809).
Patriot of Humanity. So Byron calls Henry Grattan (1750-1820).—Don Juan (preface to canto vi., etc.. 1824).
Patron (The), a farce by S. Foote (1764). The patron is Sir Thomas Lofty, called by his friends, “sharp-judging Adriel, the Muse’s friend, himself a Muse,” but by those who loved him less, “the modern Midas.” Books without number were dedicated to him, and the writers addressed him as the “British Pollio, Atticus, the Mæcēnas of England, protector of arts, paragon of poets, arbiter of taste, and sworn appraiser of Apollo and the Muses.” The plot is very simple: Sir Thomas Lofty has written a play called Robinson Crusoe, and gets Richard Bever to stand godfather to it. The play is damned past redemption, and to soothe Bever, Sir Thomas allows him to marry his niece, Juliet.
Horace Walpole, earl of Orford, is the original of “Sir Thomas Lofty” (1717-1797).