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which a Roman slave or a son in the power of his father was allowed to hold for himself. The adjective only is now used.

By tincture or reflection they augment their small peculiar.— BACON.

Revenge is so absolutely the peculiar of Heaven, that no consideration whatever can empower even the best men to assume the execution of it.-SOUTH.

In none of Milton's works is his peculiar manner more happily displayed than in the Allegro and the Penseroso. It is impossible to conceive that the mechanism of language can be brought to a more exquisite degree of perfection. These poems differ from others as otto of roses differs from ordinary rosewater, the close-packed essence from the thin, diluted mixture.MACAULAY.

Pedant. Sometimes in old writers equivalent to a pedagogue, or teacher of languages.

Your pedant should provide you some parcels of French, or some pretty commodity of Italian.-B. JONSON, Cynthia's Revels,

iii. 3.

Like a pedant that keeps a school in the church.

SHAKSPEARE, Twelfth Night, iii. 2.

Master, a mercatante, or a pedant,

I know not what; but formal in apparel,

In gait and countenance surely like a father.

Id., Taming of the Shrew, iv. 2.

The boy who scarce has paid his entrance down

To his proud pedant, or declined a noun.-DRYDEN.

A man that has been brought up among books, and is able to talk of nothing else, is a very indifferent companion, and what we call a pedant.-Spectator, No. 105.

To all who have observed the influence of time, of circumstances and of associates on mankind, to all who have seen a hero in the gout, a democrat in the church, a pedant in love, or a philosopher in liquor, this practice of painting in nothing but black and white is unpardonable even in the drama.-MACAULAY.

216

PENCIL-PERQUISITES.

Pencil. This was long used for the painter's brush.

With subtil pencil painted was this storie.

CHAUCER, The Knight's Tale.

Your lordships may be pleased to pass your censure, whether Italians can make fruits as well as Flemings, which is the common glory of their pencils.-Reliquiæ Wottonianæ.

The kindred arts shall in their praise conspire,

One dip the pencil, and one string the lyre.

POPE, Epistle to Mr. Jervas.

It was Hogarth's custom to sketch on the spot any remarkable face of which he wished to preserve the remembrance; and a friend informed Nichols that being with Hogarth at the Bedford Coffee-house, he observed him drawing with a pencil on his nail a sketch of the features of a person in the coffee-room.TIMBS.

Pensive.

Once had a strong sense of melancholy : now, rather thoughtful,' its literal meaning.

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Being pensive at home, if you go to the theatre to drive away fancies, it is as good purpose as for the ache of the head to knock out your brains. When you are grieved, pass the time with your neighbours in sober conference; if you can read, let books be your comfort.-GOSSON, To the gentlewomen citizens (1579).

In this respect the works of Shakspeare are miracles of art. In a piece which may be read aloud in three hours, we see a character gradually unfold all its recesses to us, we see it change with the change of circumstances; the petulant youth rises into the politic and warlike sovereign, the tyrant is altered by the chastening of affliction with a pensive moralist, the brave and loyal subject passes step by step to the extremities of human depravity; yet there are no unnatural transitions.—MACAULAY.

Perquisites. The word occurs in the sense of perquisition, a diligent search.

That fine, penetrating principle, which introduces and assimilates to food of plants, and is so fugitive as to escape all the filtrations and perquisites of the most nice observer.—BERKELEY, Siris.

PERSON-PERSPECTIVE.

But grant to life some perquisites of joy,
A time there is, when like a thrice-told tale,
Long rifled life of sweets can yield no more.

Person.

Dr. YOUNG.

217

In Roman law persona (literally an actor's mask) was used to mean not only a human being, but also the condition of a man, the character he sustained on the world's stage. Unus homo sustinet plures personas. In this latter sense, as well as that of an actual theatrical part, 'person' was often used by old English authors. We still say to 'personate.'

Expressing besides a most real affection in the personators to those for whose sake they would sustain these persons.-BEN JONSON, Masque at Lord Haddington's Marriage.

God is no respecter of persons.—Authorised Version, Acts x. 34.
I then did use the person of your father,
The image of his power lay then in me.

SHAKSPEARE, 2 Henry IV, v. 2
Adorn'd

She was indeed, and lovely to attract
Thy love, not thy subjection, and her gifts
Were such as under government well seem'd,
Unseemly to bear rule, which was thy part
And person, hadst thou known thyself aright.

MILTON, Paradise Lost, Bk. x.

Perspective. Formerly a glass to look through, a telescope or microscope.

Most things they saw with us, as mathematical instruments, sea compasses, the vertue of the loadstone in drawing yron, a perspective glass whereby was shewed many strange sights.HACKLUYT, Voyages.

From hence without a perspective, we see

Bever and Lincolne, where we fain would be.

CORBET.

He applies a long perspective trunk, with a convex glass fitted to the same hole.-Reliquiae Wottoniana.

218

PERSPICUOUS-PERT.

The parterres, flower gardens, orangeries, perspectives, fountains, and all this at the banks of the sweetest river in the world.-JOHN EVELYN, Ham House.

China. I had no repugnance then-why should I now haveto those little lawless azure-tinctured grotesques, which under the notion of men and women float about uncircumscribed by any element in that world before perspective,--a china tea-cup. I like to see my old friends whom distance cannot diminish, figuring up in the air. Here is a young and courtly Mandarin handing tea to a lady two miles off. See how distance seems to set off respect.-C. LAMB.

Perspicuous. Occurs in the sense of conspicuous. The Palace of Richmond perspicuous to all the country round about.-HOLINSHED.

Dundas. In his various offices no one was more useful: he was an admirable man of business, and those professional habits he brought from the bar were not more serviceable to him in making his speeches perspicuous and his reasoning logical than they were in disciplining his mind to the drudgery of the desk.BROUGHAM.

Pert. Once, skilful, active, bold; but now only used in the unfavourable sense of 'malapert.'

Look who that is most virtuous alway,
Prive and pert, and most intendeth ay
To do the gentle dedes that he can;

Take him for the greatest gentleman.-CHAUCER.

For yonder walls that pertly front yon town.

SHAKSPEARE, Troilus and Cressida, iv. 5.

On the tawny sands and shelves

Tripp'd the pert fairies and the dapper elves.-MILTON.

Some pleasures are too pert, as well as others too flat, to be relished long, and vivacity in some cases is worse than dulness. -POPE.

Three College Sophs, and three pert Templers came,

The same their talents, and their tastes the same.

Id., Dunciad, Bk. ii.

PETTICOAT-PICTURE.

219

What a dead thing is a clock, with its ponderous embowelment of lead and brass, its pert or solemn dulness, compared with the simple altar-like structure and silent heart-language of the old dial! It stood as the garden god of Christian gardens : if its business use is superseded by more elaborate inventions, its moral uses, its beauty, might have pleaded for its continuance. It spoke of moderate labours, of pleasures not protracted after sunset, of temperance and of good hours; it was the primitive clock-the horologe of the first world.-C. LAMB.

Petticoat. Formerly, a garment for either sex. The first notice of the word is in the time of Henry VIII.

Rules for Valets. Warm your Master his petticoat, his doublet, and his stomacher, and then put on his hose, then his shoes or slippers, then straighten up his hose mannerly, and tie them up; then lace his doublet hole by hole.-Boke of Kerving.

In petticoats of stamel red

And milk-white kerchers on their head.-Old England.

Is't not a misery, and the greatest of our age, to see a handsome, young, fair enough, and well-mounted wench humble herself in an old stammel petticoat. - BEAUMONT and FLETCHER, The Woman Hater, iv. 2.

She is a great artist at her needle; 'tis incredible what sums she spends in embroidering, for besides what is appropriated to her personal use as mantles, petticoats, stomachers, handkerchiefs, purses, pin-cushions, and working aprons, she keeps four French protestants continually employed in making divers pieces of superfluous furniture, as quilts, toilets, hangings for closets, beds, window-curtains, easy chairs, and tabourets.— Spectator.

Picture. A representation, not always in painting

as now.

'He look'd as the devil over Lincoln.' This proverb is taken from a stone picture of the devil which doth, or lately did, overlook Lincoln College.-FULLER.

A spoone, the gift of Master Reginald Woolf, all gilte with the picture of St. John.—Baptismal Gift (1560).

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