Princes. It was Prince Bismarck, the German Chancellor, who said to a courtly attendant, “Let princes be princes, and mind your own business.”
Prince’s Peers, a term of contempt applied to peers of low birth. The phrase arose in the reign of Charles VII., of France, when his son Louis (afterwards Louis XI.) created a host of riff-raff peers, such as tradesmen, farmers, and mechanics, in order to degrade the aristocracy, and thus weaken its influence in the state.
Printed Books. The first book produced in England, was printed in England in 1477, by William Caxton, in the Almonry, at Westminster, and was entitled The Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers.
The Rev. T. Wilson says: “The press at Oxford existed ten years before there was any press in Europe, except those of Haarlem and Mentz.” The person who set up the Oxford press was Corsellis, and his first printed book bore the date of 1468. The colophon of it ran thus: “Explicit exposicio Sancti Jeronimi in simbolo apostolorum ad papam laurēcium. Impressa Oxonii Et finita Anno Domini Mcccclxviij., xvij. die Decembris.” The book is a small quarto of forty-two leaves, and was first noticed in 1664 by Richard Atkins in his Origin and Growth of Printing. Dr. Conyers Middleton, in 1735, charged Atkins with forgery. In 1812, S. W. Singer defended the book. Dr. Cotton took the subject up in his Typographical Gazetteer (first and second series).
Prior (Matthew). The monument to this poet in Westminster Abbey was by Rysbrack; executed by order of Louis XIV.
Priory (Lord), an old-fashioned husband, who actually thinks that a wife should “love, honor, and obey” her husband; nay, more, that “forsaking all others, she should cleave to him so long as they both should live.”
Lady Priory, an old-fashioned wife, but young and beautiful. She was, however, so very old-fashioned that she went to bed at ten and rose at six; dressed in a cap and gown of her own making; respected and loved her husband; discouraged flirtation; and when assailed by any improper advances, instead of showing temper or conceited airs, quietly and tranquilly seated herself to some modest household duty till the assailant felt the irresistible power of modesty and virtue.—Mrs. Inchbald, Wives as They Were and Maids as They Are (1797).
Priscian, a great grammarian of the fifth century. The Latin phrase, Diminuĕre Prisciani caput (“to break Priscian’s head”), means to “violate the rules of grammar.” (See [Pegasus].)
Some, free from rhyme or reason, rule or check,
Break Priscian’s head, and Pegasus’s neck.
Pope, The Dunciad, iii. 161 (1728).
Quakers (that like to lanterns, bear
Their light within them) will not swear
And hold no sin so deeply red
As that of breaking Priscian’s head.
Butler, Hudibras, II. ii. 219, etc. (1664).