licity. He is
half-barber and half-schoolmaster. His excitement in the play-house when
he went to see Garrick in "Hamlet" is charming.--Fielding, _The History
of Tom Jones_ (1749).

The humor of Smollett, although genuine and hearty, is coarse and
vulgar. He was superficial where Fielding showed deep insight; but
he had a rude conception of generosity of which Fielding seems
incapable. It is owing to this that "Strap" is superior to
"Partridge."--Hazlitt, _Comic Writers_.

=Parvenue.= One of the O'Neals, being told that Barrett of Castlemone had
only been 400 years in Ireland, replied, "I hate the upstart, which can
only look back to yesterday."

=Parviz= ("_victorious_"), surname of Khosrou II. of Persia. He kept
15,000 female musicians, 6000 household officers, 20,500 saddle-mules,
960 elephants, 200 slaves to scatter perfumes when he went abroad, and
1000 sekabers to water the roads before him. His horse, Shibdiz, was
called "the Persian Buceph[)a]lus."

The reigns of Khosrou I. and II. were the golden period of Persian
history.

=Parzival=, the hero and title of a metrical romance, by Wolfram v.
Eschenbach. Parzival was brought up by a widowed mother, in solitude,
but when grown to manhood, two wandering knights persuaded him to go to
the court of King Arthur. His mother, hoping to deter him, consented to
his going if he would wear the dress of a common jester. This he did,
but soon achieved such noble deeds that Arthur made him a knight of the
Round Table. Sir Parzival went in quest of the Holy Graal, which was
kept in a magnificent castle called Graalburg, in Spain, built by the
royal priest Titurel. He reached the castle, but having neglected
certain conditions, was shut out, and, on his return, the priestess of
Graalburg insisted on his being expelled the court and degraded from
knighthood. Parzival then led a new life of abstinence and
self-abnegation, and a wise hermit became his instructor. At length he
reached such a state of purity and sanctity that the priestess of
Graalburg declared him worthy to become lord of the castle (1205).

[Asterism] This, of course, is an allegory of a Christian giving up
everything in order to be admitted a priest and king in the city of God,
and becoming a fool in order to learn true wisdom (see 1 _Cor._ iii.
18).

=Pasquin=, a Roman cobbler of the latter half of the fifteenth century,
whose shop stood in the neighborhood of the Braschi