Chapter Potage to P. R. B of P by Brewer's Readers Handbook

P. P., “Clerk of the Parish,” the feigned signature of Dr. Arbuthnot, subscribed to a volume of Memoirs in ridicule of Burnet’s History of My Own Times.

In Ireland P.P. often stands for Parish Priest.

Those who were placed around the dinner-table had those feelings of awe with which P. P., Clerk of the Parish, was oppressed, when he first uplifted the psalm in presence of…the wise Mr. justice Freeman, the good lady Jones, and the great sir Thomas Truby.—Sir W. Scott.

Pragmatic Sanction. The word pragmaticus means “relating to state affairs,” and the word sanctio means “an ordinance” or “decree.” The four most famous statutes so called are—

(1)The Pragmatic Sanction of St. Louis (1268), which forbade the court of Rome to levy taxes or collect subscriptions in France without the express permission of the king. It also gave permission in certain cases of French subjects appealing from the ecclesiastical to the civil courts of the realm.

(2) The Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges, passed by Charles VII. of France in 1438. By this ordinance, the power of the pope in France was limited and defined. The authority of the National Council was declared superior to that of the pope. The French clergy were forbidden to appeal to Rome on any point affecting the secular condition of the nation; and the Roman pontiff was wholly forbidden to appropriate to himself any vacant living, or to appoint to any bishopric or parish church in France.

(3) The Pragmatic Sanction of kaiser Karl VI. of Germany (in 1713), which settled the empire on his daughter, the archduchess Maria Theresa, wife of François de Loraine. Maria Theresa ascended the throne in 1740, and a European war was the result.

(4) The Pragmatic Sanction of Charles III. of Spain (1767). This was to suppress the Jesuits of Spain.

N.B.—What is meant emphatically by The Pragmatic Sanction is the third of these ordinances, viz. settling the line of succession in Germany on the house of Austria.

Praise indeed. “Approbation from sir Hubert Stanley is praise indeed.”—Morton : Cure for the Heartache, act i. 2 (1811).

Pramnian Mixture (The), any intoxicating draught. The “mixture” was made from the Pramnian grape. Circê gave Ulysses “Pramnian wine” impregnated with drugs, in order to prevent his escape from the island.

And for my drink prepared
The Pramnian mixture in a golden cup,
Impregnating (on my destruction bent)
With noxious herbs the draught.
   —Homer: Odyssey, x. (Cowper’s trans.).

Prasildo, a Babylonish nobleman, who falls in love wit h Tisbina wife of his friend Iroldo. He is overheard by Tisbina threatening to kill himself, and, in order to divert him from his guilty passion, she promises to return his love on condition of his performing certain adventures which she thinks to be impossible. However, Prasildo performs them all, and then Tisbina and Iroldo, finding no excuse, take poison to avoid the alternative. Prasildo resolves to do the same, but is told by the apothecary that the “poison” he had supplied was a harmless drink. Prasildo tells his friend, Iroldo quits the country, and Tisbina marries Prasildo. Time passes on, and Prasildo hears that his friend’s life is in danger, whereupon he starts forth to rescue him at the hazard of his own life.—Bojardo: Innamorato Orlando (1495).

Prasutagus or Præsutagus, husband of Bonduica or Boadicea queen of the Iceni.—Richard of Circencester: History, xxx. (fourteenth century).

Me, the wife of rich Prasutagus; me, the lover of liberty,—
Me they seized, and me they tortured!
   —Tennyson: Boadicea.