John White, of Dorchester, a puritan
divine (1574-1648).

=Patriarchs= (_The Last of the_). So _Christopher Casby_, of
Bleeding-heart Yard was called. "So grey, so slow, so quiet, so
impassionate, so very bumpy in the head, that patriarch was the word for
him." Painters implored him to be a model for some patriarch they
designed to paint. Philanthropists looked on him as famous capital for a
platform. He had once been town agent in the Circumlocution Office, and
was well-to-do.

His face had a bloom on it like ripe wall-fruit, and his blue eyes
seemed to be the eyes of wisdom and virtue. His whole face teemed
with the look of benignity. Nobody could say where the wisdom was,
or where the virtue was, or where the benignity was, but they
seemed to be somewhere about him.... He wore a long wide-skirted
bottle-green coat, and a bottle-green pair of trousers, and a
bottle-green waistcoat. The patriarchs were not dressed in
bottle-green broadcloth, and yet his clothes looked
patriarchal.--C. Dickens, _Little Dorrit_ (1857).

=Patrick=, an old domestic at Shaw's Castle.--Sir W. Scott, _St. Ronan's
Well_ (time, George III.).

_Patrick_ (_St._), the tutelar saint of Ireland. Born at Kirk Patrick,
near Dumbarton. His baptismal name was "Succeath" ("valor in war"),
changed by Milcho, to whom he was sold as a slave into "Cotharig" (four
families or four masters, to whom he had been sold). It was Pope
Celestine who changed the name to "Patricius," when he sent him to
convert the Irish.

Certainly the most marvellous of all the miracles ascribed to the saints
is that recorded of St. Patrick. "He swam across the Shannon with his
head in his mouth!"

_Saint Patrick and King O'Neil._ One day, the saint set the end of his
crozier on the foot of O'Neil, king of Ulster, and, leaning heavily on
it, hurt the king's foot severely; but the royal convert showed no
indication of pain or annoyance whatsoever.

A similar anecdote is told of St. Areed, who went to show the king of
Abyssinia a musical instrument he had invented. His majesty rested the
head of his spear on the saint's foot, and leaned with both his hands on
the spear while he listened to the music. St. Areed, though his great
toe was severely pierced, showed no sign of pain, but went on playing as
if nothing was the matter.

_St. Patrick and the Serpent._ St[TN-70] Patrick cleared Ireland of
vermin. One old serpent resisted,