Pride (Sir), first a drayman, then a colonel in the parliamentary army.—S. Butler, Hudibras (1663-78).
Pride of Humility. Antisthĕnês, the Cynic, affected a very ragged coat; but Socrătês said to him, “Antisthenês, I can see your vanity peering through the holes of your coat.”
Pride’s Purge, a violent invasion of parliamentary rights by Colonel Pride, in 1649. At the head of two regiments of soldiers he surrounded the House of Commons, seized forty-one of the members and shut out 160 others. None were allowed into the House but those most friendly to Cromwell. This fag-end went by the name of “the Rump.”
Pridwin or Priwen, Prince Arthur’s shield.
Arthur placed a golden helmet upon his head, on which was engraven the figure of a dragon; and on his shoulders his shield, called Priwen, upon which the picture of the blessed Mary, mother of God, was painted; then, girding on his Caliburn, which was an excellent sword, made in the isle of Avallon; he took in his right hand his lance, Ron, which was hard, broad, and fit for slaughter.—Geoffrey, British History, ix. 4 (1142).
Priest of Nature, Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727).
Lo! Newton, priest of nature, shines afar,
Scans the wide world, and numbers every star.
Campbell, Pleasures of Hope, i. (1799).
Prig, a knavish beggar.—Beaumont and Fletcher, The Beggars’ Bush (1622).
Prig (Betsey), an old monthly nurse, “the frequent pardner” of Mrs. Gamp; equally ignorant, equally vulgar, equally selfish, and brutal to her patients.