Heiress_, makes Lady Emily tell Miss Alscrip
that the magic words are "nimini pimini;" and that if she will stand
before her mirror and pronounce these words repeatedly, she cannot fail
to give her lips that happy plie which is known as the "Paphian
mimp."--_The Heiress_, iii. 2 (1781).

=Pru'sio=, king of Alvarecchia, slain by Zerbi'no.--Ariosto, _Orlando
Furioso_ (1516).

=Pry= (_Paul_), one of those idle, meddling fellows, who, having no
employment of their own, are perpetually interfering in the affairs of
other people.--John Poole, _Paul Pry_.

=Prydwen= or PRIDWIN (_q.v._), called in the _Mabinogion_, the ship of
King Arthur. It was also the name of his shield. Taliessin speaks of it
as a ship, and Robert of Gloucester as a shield.

Hys sseld that het Prydwen.
Myd ye suerd he was ygurd, that so strong was and kene;
Calybourne yt was ycluped, nas nour no such ye wene.
In ys right hond ys lance he nom, that ycluped was Ron.

I. 174.

=Prynne= (_Hester_). Handsome, haughty gentlewoman of English birth,
married to a deformed scholar, whom she does not love. She comes alone
to Boston, meets Arthur Dimmesdale, a young clergyman, and becomes his
wife in all except in name. When her child is born she is condemned to
stand in the pillory, holding it in her arms, to be reprimanded by
officials, civic and clerical, and to wear, henceforward, upon her
breast, the letter "A" in scarlet. Her fate is more enviable than that
of her undiscovered lover, whose vacillations of dread and despair and
determination to reveal all but move Hester to deeper pity and stronger
love. She is beside him when he dies in the effort to bare his bosom and
show the cancerous _Scarlet Letter_ that has grown into his flesh while
she wore hers outwardly.--Nathaniel Hawthorne, _The Scarlet Letter_
(1850).

=Psalmist= (_The_). King David is called "The Sweet Psalmist of Israel" (2
_Sam._ xxiii. 1). In the compilation called _Psalms_, in the Old
Testament, seventy-three bear the name of David, twelve were composed by
Asaph, eleven by the sons of Korah, and one (_Psalm_ xc.) by Moses.

=Psycarpax= (_i. e._ "_granary-thief_"), son of Troxartas, king of the
mice. The frog king offered to carry the young Psycarpax over a lake;
but a water-hydra made its appearance, and the frog-king, to save
himself, dived under water, whereby the mouse prince lost his life. This
catastrophe brought about the fatal _Battle of the Frog