Chapter Podgers to Poisoners of P by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Podgers to Poisoners

Podgers (The), lickspittles of the great.—Hollingshead: The Birthplace of Podgers.

Podsnap (Mr.), “a too, too smiling large man with a fatal freshness on him.” Mr. Podsnap has “two little light-coloured wiry wings, one on either side of his else bald head, looking as like his hair-brushes as his hair.” On his forehead are generally “little red beads,” and he wears “a large allowance of crumpled shirt-collar up behind.”

Mrs. Podsnap, “a fine woman for professor Owen: quantity of bone, neck and nostrils like a rocking- horse, hard features, and majestic head-dress in which Podsnap has hung golden offerings.”

Georgiana Podsnap, daughter of the above; called by her father “the young person.” She is a harmless, inoffensive girl, “always trying to hide her elbows.” Georgiana adores Mrs. Lammle, and when Mr. Lammle tries to marry the girl to Mr. Fledgeby, Mrs. Lammle induces Mr. Twemlow to speak to the father and warn him against the connection.

It may not be so in the gospel according to Podsnappery,… but it has been the truth since the foundations of the universe were laid.—Dickens: Our Mutual Friend (1864).

Poem in Marble (A), the Taj, a mausoleum of white marble, raised in Agra by shah Jehan, to his favourite shahrina Moomtaz-i-Mahul, who died in childbirth of her eighth child. It is also called “The Marble Queen of Sorrow.”

Poet (The Quaker), Bernard Barton (1784–1849).

Poet Sire of Italy, Alighieri Dantê (1265–1321).

Poet Squab. John Dryden was so called by the earl of Rochester, on account of his corpulence (1631–1701).

Poet of France (The), Pierre Ronsard (1524–1585).

Poet of Poets, Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822).

Poet of the Poor, the Rev. George Crabbe (1754–1832).

Poets (Lives of the), by Dr. Johnson (1779-81).

Poets (The prince of). Edmund Spenser is so called on his monument in West-minster Abbey (1553–1598).

Prince of Spanish Poets, Garcilaso de la Vega; so called by Cervantês (1503–1536).

Poets Laureate, by letters patent—

(1) Ben Jonson 1615-6*

(2) Sir W. Davenant 1638*

(3) John Dryden 1670*

(4) Thomas Shadwell 1688

(5) Nahum Tate 1692

(6) Nicholas Rowe 1713*

(7) Laurence Eusden 1718

(8) Colley Cibber 1730