Chapter Prince of Peace to Prisoner of Chillon of P by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Prince of Peace to Prisoner of Chillon

Prince of Peace, a title given to the Messiah (Isa. ix. 6).

Prince of Peace, don Manuel Godoy of Badajoz. So called because he concluded the “peace of Basle” in 1795 between France and Spain (1767–1851).

Prince of the Air, Satan.

…Jesus Son of Mary, second Eve,
Saw Satan fall, like lightning, down from heaven,
Prince of the air.

Milton: Paradise Lost, x. 185 (1665).

Prince of the Devils, Satan (Matt. xii. 24).

Prince of the Kings of the Earth, a title given to Christ (Rev. i. 5).

Prince of the Power of the Air, Satan (Eph. ii. 2).

Prince of the Vegetable Kingdom. The palm tree is so called by Linnæus.

Prince of this World, Satan (John xiv. 30).

Prince’s Peers, a term of contempt applied to peers of low birth. The phrase arose in the reign of Charles VII. of France, when his son Louis (afterwards Louis XI.) created a host of riff-raff peers, such as tradesmen, farmers, and mechanics, in order to degrade the aristocracy, and thus weaken its influence in the state.

Princes. It was prince Bismarck the German chancellor who said to a courtly attendant, “Let princes be princes, and mind your own business.”

Princess (The), a poem by Tennyson (1847), especially noted for the songs introduced. One of the songs begins—

Home they brought her warrior dead.

Printed Books. The first book produced in England was printed in England in 1477, by William Caxton, in the Almonry at Westminster, and was entitled The Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers.

The Rev. T. Wilson says, “The press at Oxford existed ten years b efore there was any press in Europe, except those of Haarlem and Mentz.” The person who set up the Oxford press was Corsellis, and his first printed book bore the date of 1468. The colophon of it runs thus: “Explicit exposicio Sancti Jeronimi in simbolo apostolorum ad papam laurecium. Impressa Oxonii Et finita Anno Domini Mcccclxviij., xvij. die Decembris.” The book is a small quarto of forty-two leaves, and was first noticed in 1664 by Richard Atkins, in his Origin and Growth of Printing. Dr. Conyers Middleton, in 1735, charged Atkins with forgery. In 1812 S. W. Singer defended the book. Dr. Cotton took the subject up in his Typographical Gazetteer (first and second series).

Prior (Matthew). The monument to this poet in Westminster Abbey was by Rysbrack; executed by order of Louis XIV.

Prioress’s Tale (The), the seventeenth of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, similar to that of “Hugh of Lincoln” (q.v.). A little boy was constantly singing the Alma redemptoris, and the Jews, having captured him on his way to school, killed him and cast his dead body into a well. His mother, anxious at his absence, went in search of him, and coming to the well heard her son’s voice singing the Alma redemptoris. She told the provost, who had the Jews executed. The child was drawn up, still repeating the same words, and being asked why he did so, replied, “he could never die till his tongue was cut out.” The abbot cut out the tongue, the child instantly gave up the ghost, and the body was buried in a marble tomb.