ding 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, _Orlando Innamorato_ (1495).

=Prasu'tagus= or =Praesu'tagus=, husband of Bonduica or Boadic[=e]a, queen
of the Ic[=e]ni.--Richard of Cirencester, _History_, xxx. (fourteenth
century).

Me, the wife of rich Prasutagus; me the lover of liberty.--
Me, they seized, and me they tortured!

Tennyson, _Boadicea_.

=Prate'fast= (_Peter_), who "in all his life spake no word in waste." His
wife was Maude, and his eldest son, Sym Sadle Gander, who married Betres
(daughter of Davy Dronken Nole, of Kent, and his wife, Al'yson).--Stephen
Hawes, _The Passe-tyme of Plesure_, xxix. (1515).

=Prattle= (_Mr._), medical practitioner, a voluble gossip, who retails all
the news and scandal of the neighborhood. He knows everybody,
everybody's affairs, and everybody's intentions.--G. Colman, Sr, _The
Deuce is in Him_ (1762).

=Pre-Adamite Kings=, Soliman Raad, Soliman Daki, and Soliman de Gian ben
Gian. The last named, having chained up the dives (1 _syl._) in the dark
caverns of P[^a]f, became so presumptuous as to dispute the Supreme Power.
All these kings maintained great state [before the existence of that
contemptible being denominated by us "The Father of Mankind"]; but none
can be compared with the eminence of Soliman ben Daoud.

=Pre-Adamite Throne= (_The_). It was Vathek's ambition to gain the
pre-Adamite throne. After long search, he was shown it at last in the
abyss of Eblis; but being there, return was impossible, and he remained
a prisoner without hope forever.

They reached at length the hall [_Argenk_] of great extent, and
covered with a lofty dome.... A funereal gloom prevailed over it.
Here, upon two beds of incorruptible cedar, lay recumbent the
fleshless forms of the pre-Adamite kings, who had once been
monarchs of the whole earth.... At their feet were inscribed the
events of their several reigns, their power, their pride, and their
crimes. [_This was the pre-Adamite throne, the ambition of the
Caliph Vathek._]--W. Beckford, _Vathek_ (1784).

=Preac