Chapter Passelyon to Patrick of P by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Patin, brother of the emperor of Rome. He fights w ith Amadis of Gaul, and has his horse killed under him.—Vasco de Lobeira: Amadis of Gaul (thirteenth century).

Patison, sir Thomas More’s licensed jester. Hans Holbein has introduced this jester in his famous picture of the lord chancellor.

Patriarch of Dorchester, John White of Dorchester, a puritan divine (1574–1648).

Patriarchs (The Last of the). So Christopher Casby of Bleeding-heart Yard was called. “So grey, so slow, so quiet, so impassionate, so very bumpy in the head, that patriarch was the word for him.” Painters implored him to be a model for some patriarch they designed to paint. Philanthropists looked on him as famous capital for a platform. He had once been town agent in the Circumlocution Office, and was well- to-do.

His face had a bloom on it like ripe wall-fruit, and his blue eyes seemed to be the eyes of wisdom and virtue. His whole face teemed with the look of benignity. Nobody could say where the wisdom was, or where the virtue was, or where the benignity was, but they seemed to be somewhere about him…. He wore a long wide-skirted bottle-green coat, and a bottle-green pair of trousers, and a bottle-green waist- coat. The patriarchs were not dressed in bottle-green broadcloth, and yet his clothes looked patriarchal.—Dickens: Little Dorrit (1857).

Patrick, an old domestic at Shaw’s Castle.—Sir W. Scott: St. Ronan’s Well (time, George III.).

Patrick (St.), the tutelar saint of Ireland. Born at Kirk Patrick, near Dumbarton. His baptismal name was “Succeath” (“valour in war”) changed by Milcho, to whom he was sold as a slave, into “Cotharig” (four families or four masters, to whom he had been sold). It was pope Celestine who changed the name to “Patricius,” when he sent him to convert the Irish.

N.B.—Certainly the most marvellous of all the miracles ascribed to the saints is that recorded of St. Patrick. “He swam across the Shannon with his head in his mouth!”

St. Patrick and king O’Neil. One day, the saint set the end of his crozier on the foot of O’Neil king of Ulster, and, leaning heavily on it, hurt the king’s foot severely; but the royal convert showed no indication of pain or annoyance whatsover.

A similar anecdote is told of St. Areed, who went to show the king of Abyssinia a musical instrument which he had invented. His majesty rested the head of his spear on the saint’s foot, and leaned with both his hands on the spear while he listened to the music. St. Areed, though his great toe was severely pierced, showed no sign of pain, but went on playing as if nothing was the matter.

St. Patrick and the Serpent. St. Patrick cleared Ireland of vermin. One old serpent resisted, but St. Patrick overcame it by cunning. He made a box, and invited the serpent to enter in. The serpent insisted it was too small; and so high the contention grew that the serpent got into the box to prove that he was right, whereupon St. Patrick slammed down the lid, and cast the box into the sea.

This tradition is marvellously like an incident of the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments. A fisherman had drawn up a box or vase in his net, and on breaking it open a genius issued therefrom, and threatened the fisherman with immediate destruction because he had been enclosed so long Said the fisherman to the genius, “I wish to know whether you really were in that vase.” “I certainly was,” answered the genius. “I cannot believe it,” replied the fisherman, “for the vase could not contain even one of your feet.” Then the genius, to prove his assertion, changed into smoke, and entered into the vase, saying, “Now, incredulous fisherman, dost thou believe me?” But the fisherman clapped the leaden cover on the vase, and told the genius he was about to throw the box into the sea, and that he would build a house on the spot to warn others not to fish up so wicked a genius. —Arabian Nights (“The Fisherman,” one of the early tales).