he
hardness of his bed, the regularity, and the freedom from all the cares
and worries of active life. He did not wish to be released, and felt
sure he should never be so happy in any other place.

A woman of Leyden, on the expiration of a long imprisonment, applied for
permission to return to her cell, and added, if the request was refused
as a favor, she would commit some offence which should give her a title
to her old quarters.

A prisoner condemned to death had his sentence commuted to seven years'
close confinement on a bed of nails. After the expiration of five years,
he declared, if ever he were released, he should adopt from choice what
habit had rendered so agreeable to him.

=Prisoner of Chillon=, Fran[c,]oise de Bonnivard, a Frenchman, who
resided at Geneva, and made himself obnoxious to Charles III., duc de
Savoie, who incarcerated him for six years in a dungeon of the
Ch[^a]teau de Chillon, at the east end of the lake of Geneva. The
prisoner was ultimately released by the Bernese, who were at war with
Savoy.

Byron has founded on this incident his poem entitled _The Prisoner of
Chillon_, but has added two brothers, whom he supposes to be imprisoned
with Fran[c,]oise, and who die of hunger, suffering, and confinement. In
fact, the poet mixes up Dant[^e]'s tale about Count Ugolino with that of
Fran[c,]oise de Bonnivard, and has produced a powerful and affecting
story, but it is not historic.

=Prisoner of State= (_The_), Ernest de Fridberg. E. Sterling has a drama
so called. (For the plot, see ERNEST DE FRIDBERG.)

=Pritchard= (_William_), commander of H.M. sloop, the _Shark_.--Sir W.
Scott, _Guy Mannering_ (time, George II.).

=Priu'li=, a senator of Venice, of unbending pride. His daughter had been
saved from the Adriatic by Jaffier, and gratitude led to love. As it was
quite hopeless to expect Priuli to consent to the match, Belvidera
eloped in the night, and married Jaffier. Priuli now discarded them
both. Jaffier joined Pierre's conspiracy to murder the Venetian
senators, but in order to save his father-in-law, revealed to him the
plot under the promise of a general free pardon. The promise was broken,
and all the conspirators except Jaffier were condemned to death by
torture. Jaffier stabbed Pierre, to save him from the wheel, and then
killed himself. Belvidera went mad and died. Priuli lived on, a
broken-down old man, sick of life, and begging to be left alone in some
"place that's fi