Pumpernickel (His Transparency), a nickname by which the Times satirized the minor German princes.
Some ninety men and ten drummers constitute their whole embattled host on the parade-ground before their palace; and their whole revenue is supplied by a percentage on the tax levied on strangers at the Pumpernickel kursaal.—Times, July 18, 1866.
Pumpkin (Sir Gilbert), a country gentleman plagued with a ward (Miss Kitty Sprightly) and a set of servants all stage mad. He entertains Captain Charles Stanley, and Captain Harry Stukely at Strawberry Hall, when the former, under cover of acting, makes love to Kitty (an heiress), elopes with her, and marries her.
Miss Bridget Pumpkin, sister of Sir Gilbert, of Strawberry Hall. A Mrs. Malaprop. She says, “The Greeks, the Romans, and the Irish are barbarian nations who had plays;” but Sir Gilbert says, “they were all Jacobites.” She speaks of “taking a degree at our principal adversity;” asks “if the Muses are a family living at Oxford,” if so, she tells Captain Stukely, she will be delighted to “see them at Strawberry Hall, with any other of his friends.” Miss Pumpkin hates “play acting,” but does not object to love-making.—Jackman, All the World’s a Stage.
Punch, derived from the Latin Mimi, through the Italian Pullicenella. It was originally intended as a characteristic representation. The tale is this: Punch, in a fit of jealousy, strangles his infant child, when Judy flies to her revenge. With a bludgeon she belabors her husband, till he becomes so exasperated that he snatches the bludgeon from her, knocks her brains out, and flings the dead body into the street. Here it attracts the notice of a police officer, who enters the house, and Punch flies to save his life. He is, however, arrested by an officer of the Inquisition, and is shut up in prison, from which he escapes by a golden key. The rest of the allegory shows the triumph of Punch over slander, in the shape of a dog, disease in the guise of a doctor death, and the devil.
Pantalone was a Venetian merchant; Dottore a Bolognese physician; Spaviento a Neapolitan braggadocio; Pullicinella a wag of Apulia; Giangurgolo and Coviello two clowns of Calabria; Gelsomino a Roman beau; Beltrame a Milanese simpleton; Brighella a Ferrarese pimp; and Arlecchino a blundering servant of Bergamo. Each was clad in an appropriate dress, had a characteristic mask, and spoke the dialect of the place he represented.
Besides these there were Amorosos or Innamoratos, with their servettas, or waiting-maids, as Smeraldina, Columbina, Spilletta, etc., who spoke Tuscan.—Walker, On the Revival of the Drama in Italy, 249.
Punch, the periodical. The first cover was designed by A. S. Henning; the present one by R. Doyle.
Pure (Simon), a Pennsylvanian Quaker. Being about to visit London to attend the quarterly meeting of his sect he brings with him a letter of introduction to Obadiah Prim, a rigid, stern Quaker, and the guardian of Anne Lovely, an heiress worth £30,000. Colonel Feignwell, availing himself of this letter of introduction, passes himself off as Simon Pure, and gets established as the accepted suitor of the heiress. Presently the real Simon Pure makes his appearance, and is treated as an impostor and swindler. The colonel hastens on the marriage arrangements, and has no sooner completed them than Master Simon re-appears, with witnesses to prove his identity; but it is too late, and Colonel Feignwell freely acknowledges the “bold stroke he has made for a wife.”—Mrs. Centlivre, A Bold Stroke for a Wife (1717).
Purefoy (Master), former tutor of Dr. Anthony Rochecliffe, the plotting royalist.—Sir W. Scott, Woodstock (time, Commonwealth).