Pickwick (Samuel), the chief character of The Pickwick Papers, a novel by C. Dickens. He is general chairman of the Pickwick Club. A most verdant, benevolent elderly gentleman, who, as member of a club instituted “for the purpose of investigating the source of the Hampstead ponds,” travels about with three members of the club, to whom he acts as guardian and adviser. The adventures they encounter form the subject of the Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1836).
The original of Seymour’s picture of “Pickwick” was a Mr. John Foster (not the biographer of Dickens, but a friend of Mr. Chapman’s, the publisher). He lived at Richmond, and was “a fat old beau,” noted for his “drab tights and black gaiters.”
Pickwickian Sense (In a), an insult whitewashed. Mr. Pickwick accused Mr. Blotton of acting in “a vile and calumnious manner;” whereupon Mr. Blotton retorted by calling Mr. Pickwick “a humbug,” But it finally was made to appear that both had used the offensive words only in a parliamentary sense, and that each entertained for the other “the highest regard and esteem.” So the difficulty was easily adjusted, and both were satisfied.
Lawyers and politicians daily abuse each other in a Pickwickian sense.—Bowditch.
Pic´rochole, king of Lernê, noted for his choleric temper, his thirst for empire, and his vast but ill-digested projects.—Rabelais, Gargantua, i. (1533).
Supposed to be a satire on Charles V. of Spain.
Picrochole’s Counsellors. The duke of Smalltrash, the earl of Swashbuckler, and Captain Durtaille, advised King Picrochole to leave a small garrison at home, and to divide his army into two parts—to send one south, and the other north. The former was to take Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany (but was to spare the life of Barbarossa), to take the islands of the Mediterranean, the Morea, the Holy Land, and all Lesser Asia. The northern army was to take Belgium, Denmark, Prussia, Poland, Russia, Norway, Sweden, sail across the Sandy Sea, and meet the other half at Constantinople, when king Picrochole was to divide the nations amongst his great captains. Echephron said he had heard about a pitcher of milk which was to make its possessor a nabob, and give him for wife a sultan’s daughter; only the poor fellow broke his pitcher, and had to go supperless to bed. (See Bobadil.)—Rabelais, Pantagruel, i. 33 (1533).
A shoemaker bought a ha’p’orth of milk; with this he intended to make butter, the butter was to buy a cow, the cow was to have a calf, the calf was to be sold, and the man to become a nabob; only the poor dreamer cracked the jug, and spilt the milk and had to go supperless to bed.—Pantagruel, i. 33.
Picts, the Caledonians or inhabitants of Albin, i.e. northern Scotland. The Scots came from Scotia, north of Ireland, and established themselves under Kenneth M’Alpin in 843.
The etymology of “Picts” from the Latin picti (“painted men”) is about equal to Stevens’s etymology of the word “brethren” from tabernacle “because we breathe-therein.