Thomas Hill, familiarly called “Tommy Hill,” was the original of this character, and also of “Gilbert Gurney,” by Theodore Hook. Planché says of Thomas Hill:
His specialité was the accurate information he could impart on all the petty details of the domestic economy of his friends, the contents of their wardrobes, their pantries, the number of pots of preserves in their store-closets, and of the table-napkins in their linen-presses, the dates of their births and marriages, the amounts of their tradesmen’s bills, and whether paid weekly or quarterly. He had been on the press, and was connected with the Morning Chronicle. He used to drive Mathews crazy by ferreting out his whereabouts when he left London, and popping the information into some paper.—Recollections, i. 131-2.
Paul Rushleigh, son of a wealthy manufacturer, and in love from boyhood with Faith Gartney. She can give him only sisterly affection in return, but her refusal makes a man of the boy. Ten years afterwards, as General Rushleigh, a noble, high-minded patriot, he meets Margaret Regis and marries her.—A. D. T. Whitney, Sights and Insights (1876).
Pauletti (the Lady Erminia), ward of Master George Heriot, the king’s goldsmith.—Sir W. Scott, The Fortunes of Nigel (time, James I.).
Pauli´na, the noble-spirited wife of Antig´onus, a Sicilian lord, and the kind friend of Queen Hermi´onê. When Hermionê gave birth in prison to a daughter, Paulina undertook to present it to King Leontês, hoping that his heart would be softened at the sight of his infant daughter; but he commanded the child to be cast out on a desert shore, and left there to perish. The child was drifted to the “coast” of Bohemia, and brought up by a shepherd, who called it Perdĭta. Florizel, the son of king Polixĕnês, fell in love with her, and fled with her to Sicily, to escape the vengeance of the angry king. The fugitives being introduced to Leontês, it was soon discovered that Perdita was the king’s daughter, and Polixenês consented to the union he had before forbidden. Paulina now invited Leontês and the rest to inspect a famous statue of Hermionê, and the statue turned out to be the living queen herself.—Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale (1604).
Pauline, “The Beauty of Lyons,” daughter of M. Deschappelles, a Lyonese merchant; “as pretty as Venus, and as proud as Juno.” Pauline rejected the suits of Beauseant, Glavis and Claude Melnotte; and the three rejected lovers combined on vengeance. To this end, Claude, who was a gardener’s son, pretended to be the Prince Como, and Pauline married him, but was indignant when she discovered the trick which had been played upon her. Claude left her, and entered the French army, where in two years and a half he rose to the rank of colonel. Returning to Lyons, he found his father-in-law on the eve of bankruptcy, and Pauline about to be sold to Beauseant for money to satisfy the creditors. Being convinced that Pauline really loved him, Claude paid the money required, and claimed the lady as his loving and grateful wife.—Lord L. B. Lytton, The Lady of Lyons (1838).
Pauline (Mademoiselle) or Monna Paula, the attendant of Lady Erminia Pauletti, the goldsmith’s ward.—Sir W. Scott, The Fortunes of Nigel (time, James I.).
Pauline Pavlovna, heroine of T. B. Aldrich’s drama of that name (1890).
Pauli´nus of York, christened 10,000 men, besides women and their children in one single day in the Swale. (Altogether some 50,000 souls, i.e. 104 every minute, 6,250 every hour, supposing he worked eight hours without stopping.)
When the Saxons first received the Christian faith,
Paulinus of old York, the zealous bishop then,
In Swale’s abundant stream christened ten thousand men,
With women and their babes, a number more besides,
Upon one happy day.
Drayton, Polyolbion, xxviii. (1622).