Chapter Platonic Love to Plon-Plon of P by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Pliant (Sir Paul), a hen-pecked husband, who dares not even touch a letter addressed to himself till my lady has read it first. His perpetual oath is Gadsbud!” He is such a dolt that he would not believe his own eyes and ears, if they bore testimony against his wife’s fidelity and continency. (See Placid, p. 851.)

Samuel Foote [1721–1777] attempted the part of “sir Paul Pliant,” but nothing could be worse. However, the people laughed heartily, and that he thought was a full approbation of his grotesque performance.—Davies.

Lady Pliant, second wife of sir Paul. “She’s handsome, and knows it; is very silly, and thinks herself wise; has a choleric old husband” very fond of her, but whom she rules with spirit, and snubs “afore folk.” My lady says, “If one has once sworn, it is most unchristian, inhuman, and obscene that one should break it.” Her conduct with Mr.Careless is most reprehensible.—Congreve: The Double Dealer (1694).

Those who remember the “lady Pliant” of Margaret Woffington [1718–1760] will recollect with pleasure her whimsical discovery of passion, and her awkwardly assumed prudery.—Davies.

Pliny, a Roman, author of Historia Naturalis, A.D. 77. It embraces astronomy, meteorology, geography, mineralogy, zoology, botany, inventions, institutions, the fine arts. It is divided into 37 books.

(English versions by Dr. Holland in 1601; by Bostock in 1828; by Riley (in Bohn’s series), 1855-57.)

The German Pliny, or “Modern Pliny,” Konrad von Gesner of Zurich, who wrote Historia Animalium, etc. (1516–1565).

The Pliny of the East, Zakarija ibn Muhammed, surnamed “Kazwîinî,” from Kazwîn, the place of his birth. He is so called by De Sacy (1200–1283).

Plon-Plon, prince Napoleon Joseph Charles Bonaparte, son of Jerome Bonaparte by his second wife (the princess Frederica Catherine of Würtemberg). Plon-Plon is a euphonic corruption of Craint-Plomb (“fear-bullet”), a nickname given to the prince in the Crimean war (1854-6).