Byron has founded on this incident his poem entitled The Prisoner of Chillon, but has added two brothers, whom he supposes to be imprisoned with Françoise, and who die of hunger, suffering, and confinement. In fact, the poet mixes up Dantê’s tale about Count Ugolino with that of Françoise de Bonnivard, and has produced a powerful and affecting story, but it is not historic.
Prisoner of State (The), Ernest de Fridberg. E. Sterling has a drama so called. (For the plot, see Ernest de Fridberg.)
Pritchard (William), commander of H.M. sloop, the Shark.—Sir W. Scott, Guy Mannering (time, George II.).
Priu´li, a senator of Venice, of unbending pride. His daughter had been saved from the Adriatic by Jaffier, and gratitude led to love. As it was quite hopeless to expect Priuli to consent to the match, Belvidera eloped in the night, and married Jaffier. Priuli now discarded them both. Jaffier joined Pierre’s conspiracy to murder the Venetian senators, but in order to save his father-in-law, revealed to him the plot under the promise of a general free pardon. The promise was broken, and all the conspirators except Jaffier were condemned to death by torture. Jaffier stabbed Pierre, to save him from the wheel, and then killed himself. Belvidera went mad and died. Priuli lived on, a broken-down old man, sick of life, and begging to be left alone in some “place that’s fit for mourning.” “There, all leave me:
Sparing no tears when you this tale relate,
But bid all cruel fathers dread my fate.”
T. Otway, Venice Preserved, v. the end (1682).
Privolvans, the antagonists of the Subvolvans.
These silly, ranting Privolvans
Have every summer their campaigns,
And muster like the warlike sons
Of Rawhead and of Bloody-bones.
S. Butler, The Elephant in the Moon, v. 85 (1754).
Probe (1 syl.), a priggish surgeon, who magnifies mole-hill ailments into mountain maladies, in order to enhance his skill and increase his charges. Thus, when Lord Foppington received a small flesh-wound in the arm from a foil, Probe drew a long face, frightened his lordship greatly, and pretended the consequences might be serious; but when Lord Foppington promised him £500 for a cure, he set his patient on his legs the next day.—Sheridan, A Trip to Scarborough (1777).
Procida (John of), a tragedy by S. Knowles (1840). John of Procida was an Italian gentleman of the thirteenth century, a skillful physician, high in favor with King Fernando II., Conrad, Manfred, and Conrad´ine. The French invaded the island, put the last two monarchs to the sword, usurped the sovereignty, and made Charles d’Anjou king. The cruelty, licentiousness, and extortion of the French being quite unbearable, provoked a general rising of the Sicilians, and in one night (Sicilian Vespers, March 30, 1282), every Frenchman, Frenchwoman, and French child in the whole island was ruthlessly butchered. Procĭda lost his only son Fernando, who had just married Isoline (3 syl.), the daughter of the French governor of Messina. Isoline died broken-hearted, and her father, the governor, was amongst the slain. The crown was given to John of Procida.
Procris, the wife of Cephălos. Out of jealousy she crept into a wood to act as a spy upon her husband. Cephalos, hearing something move, discharged an arrow in the direction of the rustling, thinking it to be caused by some wild beast, and shot Procris. Jupiter, in pity, turned Procris into a star.—Greek and Latin Mythology.