Chapter Peace of Antalcidas to Pedlar's Acre of P by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Peace of Antalcidas to Pedlar's Acre

Peace of Antalcidas (The), between Artaxerxes and the states of Greece. It was brought about by Antalcidas, the Spartan (B.C. 387).

Peace of God In 1035 the clergy interfered to prevent the constant feuds between baron and baron; they commanded all men to lay down their arms on pain of excommunication. The command and malediction were read daily from the pulpits by the officiating priests after the proper gospel:- “May they who refuse to obey be accursed, and have their portion with Cain, the first murderer; with Judas, the arch-traitor; and with Dathan and Abiram, who went down alive into the pit. May they be accursed in the life that now is; and in that which is to come may their light be put out as a candle.” So saying, all the candles were instantly extinguished, and the congregation had to make its way in the dark out of church as it best could.

Peace with Honour The rallying cry of the late Lord Beaconsfield; it originated with his speech after the Berlin Conference (1878), when he stated that he had brought back Peace with Honour.

Peaceful (The). Kang-wâng, third of the Thow dynasty of China, in whose reign no one was either put to death or imprisoned. (1098-1152.)

Peach To inform, to “split;” a contraction of impeach.

Peacock Let him keep peacock to himself. Let him keep to himself his eccentricities. When George III. had partly recovered from one of his attacks, his Ministers got him to read the King's Speech, but he ended every sentence with the word “peacock.” The Minister who drilled him said that peacock was an excellent word for ending a sentence, only kings should not let subjects hear it, but should whisper it softly. The result was a perfect success: the pause at the close of each sentence had an excellent effect.
   By the peacock! A common oath which at one time was thought sacred. The fabled incorruptibility of the peacock's flesh caused the bird to be adopted as a type of the resurrection.

Peacock's Feather Unlucky (A). The peacock's tail is emblem of an Evil Eye, or an ever-vigilant traitor. The tale is this: Argus was the chief Minister of Osiris, King of Egypt. When the king started on his Indian expedition, he left his queen, Isis, regent, and Argus was to be her chief adviser. Argus, with one hundred spies (called eyes), soon made himself so powerful and formidable that he shut up the queen-regent in a strong castle, and proclaimed himself king. Mercury marched against him, took him prisoner, and cut off his head; whereupon Juno metamorphosed Argus into a peacock, and set his eyes in its tale.

Peak (The), Derbyshire. “The Queen of Scots' Pillar” is a column in the cave of the peak as clear as alabaster, and so called because Mary Queen of Scots proceeded thus far, and then returned.

Peal To ring a peal is to ring 5,040 changes; any number of changes less than that is technically called a touch or flourish. Bells are first raised, and then pealed. (Qy. Latin pello, to strike?)

“This society rung ... a true and complete peal of 5,040 grandsire triples in three hours and fourteen minutes.”- Inscription in Windsor Curfew Tower.

Pearl (The). Dioscorides and Pliny mention the belief that pearls are formed by drops of rain falling into the oyster-shells while open; the rain-drops thus received being hardened into pearls by some secretions of the animal.
   According to Richardson, the Persians say when drops of spring-rain fall into the pearl-oyster they produce pearls.

“Precious the tear as that rain from the sky
Which turns into pearls as it falls on the sea.”
Thomas Moore.

“Pearls ... are believed to be the result of an abnormal secretory process caused by an irritation of the mollusk consequent on the intrusion into the shell of some foreign body, as a grain of sand, an egg of the mollusk itself, or perhaps some cercarian parasite.”- G. F. King: Gems, etc., chap. xii. p. 211.

    Cardan says that pearls are polished by being pecked and played with by doves. (De Rerum Varietate, vii. 34.)