=Prophetess= (_The_), Ay[=e]'shah, the second and beloved wife of Mahomet.
It does not mean that she prophesied, but, like _Sultana_, it is simply
a title of honor. He was the _Prophet_, she the _Proph[=e]ta_ or Madam
Prophet.

=Prose= (_Father of English_), Wycliffe (1324-1384).

_Prose_ (_Father of Greek_), Herodotus (B.C. 484-408).

_Prose_ (_Father of Italian_), Boccaccio (1313-1375).

=Pros'erpine= (3 _syl._), called _Proserp[)i]na_ in Latin, and
"Proser'pin" by Milton, was daughter of Ce'r[^e]s. She went to the field
of Enna to amuse herself by gathering asphodels, and being tired, fell
asleep. Dis, the god of Hell, then carried her off, and made her queen
of the infernal reions.[TN-107] Cer[^e]s wandered for nine days over the
world disconsolate, looking for her daughter, when Hec'ate (2 _syl._)
told her she had heard the girl's cries, but knew not who had carried
her off. Both now went to Olympus, when the sun-god told them the true
state of the case.

N.B.--This is an allegory of seed-corn.

Not that fair field
Of Enna, where Proser'pin, gathering flowers,
Herself a fairer flower, by gloomy Dis
Was gathered--which cost Cer[^e]s all that pain
To seek her thro' the world.

Milton, _Paradise Lost_, iv. 268 (1665).

=Prosperity Robinson=, Frederick Robinson, afterwards Viscount Goderich
and earl of Ripon, chancellor of the exchequer in 1823. So called by
Cobbett, from his boasting about the prosperity of the country just a
little before the great commercial crisis of 1825.

=Pros'pero=, the banished duke of Milan, and father of Miranda. He was
deposed by his brother, Antonio, who sent him to sea with Miranda in a
"rotten carcass of a boat," which was borne to a desert island. Here
Prospero practised magic. He liberated Ariel from the rift of a pine
tree, where the witch Syc'orax had confined him for twelve years, and
was served by that bright spirit with true gratitude. The only other
inhabitant of the island was Cal[)i]ban, the witch's "welp." After a
residence in the island of sixteen years, Prospero raised a tempest by
magic to cause the shipwreck of the usurping duke and of Ferdinand, his
brother's son. Ferdinand fell in love with his cousin, Miranda, and
eventually married her.--Shakespeare, _The Tempest_ (1609).

Still they kept limping to and fro,
Like Ariels round old Prospero,
Saying, "Dear master, let us go."
But still th