Lisez-moi, comme il faut, au lieu de ces sornettes,
Les Quatrains de Pibrac, et les doctes Tablettes
Du conseiller Matthieu; l’ouvrage est de valeur, ...
La Guide des pécheurs est encore un bon livre.
Molière, Sganarelle, i. 1 (1660).
(Pierre Matthieu, poet and historian, wrote Quatrains de la Vanité du Monde, 1629.)
Picanninies (4 syl.), little children; the small fry of a village.—West Indian Negroes.
There were at the marriage the picanninies and the Joblilies, but not the Grand Panjandrum.—Yonge.
Pic´atrix, the pseudonym of a Spanish monk; author of a book on demonology.
When I was a student ... that same Rev. Picatrix ... was wont to tell us that devils did naturally fear the bright flashes of swords as much as he feared the splendor of the sun.—Rabelais, Pantag´ruel, iii. 23 (1545).
Picciola, flower that, springing up in the court-yard of his prison, cheers and elevates the lonely life of the prisoner whom X. B. Saintine makes the hero of his charming tale, Picciola (1837).
Piccolino, an opera by Mons. Guiraud (1875); libretto by MM. Sardou and Nuittier. This opera was first introduced to an English audience in 1879. The tale is this: Marthé, an orphan girl adopted by a Swiss pastor, is in love with Frédéric Auvray, a young artist, who “loved and left his love.” Marthé plods through the snow from Switzerland to Rome to find her young artist, but, for greater security, puts on boy’s clothes, and assumes the name of Piccolino. She sees Frédéric, who knows her not; but, struck with her beauty, makes a drawing of her. Marthé discovers that the faithless Frédéric is paying his addresses to Elena (sister of the Duke Strozzi). She tells the lady her love-tale; and Frédéric, deserted by Elena, forbids Piccolino (Marthé) to come into his presence again. The poor Swiss wanderer throws herself into the Tiber, but is rescued. Frédéric repents, and the curtain falls on a reconciliation and approaching marriage.
Pickel-Herringe (5 syl.), a popular name among the Dutch for a buffoon; a corruption of pickle-härin (“a hairy sprite”), answering to Ben Jonson’s Puck-hairy.
Pickle (Peregrine), a savage, ungrateful spendthrift, fond of practical jokes, delighting in tormenting others; but suffering with ill temper the misfortunes which result from his own wilfulness. His ingratitude to his uncle, and his arrogance to Hatchway and Pipes, are simply hateful.—T. Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle (1751).