The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read,
With loads of learned lumber in his head,
With his own tongue still edifies his ears,
And always listening to himself appears.

3789

PEN- see Authors.

Pope: E. on Criticism. Pt. iii. Line 53

The unhappy man who once has trail'd a pen,
Lives not to please himself, but other men;
Is always drudging, wastes his life and blood,
Yet only eats and drinks what you think good.
3790

Dryden: Prol. to Lee's Cæsar Borgic.

Let him be kept from paper, pen, and ink,

So may he cease to write, and learn to think.

3791 Prior: To a Person who Wrote ill. On Same Person Oh! Nature's noblest gift-my gray-goose quill:

Slave of my thoughts, obedient to my will,

Torn from thy parent bird to form a pen,
That mighty instrument of little men!

3792

Byron: English Bards. Line 7.

Bulwer-Lytton: Richelieu. Act ii. Sc. 2

Beneath the rule of men entirely great,
The pen is mightier than the sword.

3793

PENTAMETER.

In the hexameter rises the fountain's silvery column;
In the pentameter aye falling in melody back.

3794

Coleridge: Ovidian Elegiac Metre

PEOPLE- - see Mob, Popularity.

And what the people but a herd confus'd,

A miscellaneous rabble, who extol

Things vulgar, and, well weigh'd, scarce worth the praise? They praise, and they admire, they know not what,

And know not whom, but as one leads the other;

And what delight to be by such extoll'd,

To live upon their tongues, and be their talk,

Of whom to be disprais'd were no small praise? 3795

Milton: Par. Regained. Bk. iii. Line 49

"God save the king!" and kings,

For if He don't, I doubt if men will longer;
I think I hear a little bird, who sings
The people by and by will be the stronger:
The veriest jade will wince whose harness wrings
So much into the raw as quite to wrong her
Beyond the rules of posting, and the mob
At last fall sick of imitating Job.

The people sweat not for their king's delight, "T enrich a pimp, or raise a parasite;

Theirs is the toil; and he who well has served His country, has his country's wealth deserved. 3797 Dryden: Sigismonda and Guiscardo. Line 55å

PERFECTION - see Excess, Man.

All, that life can rate,

Worth name of life, in thee hath estimate;
Youth, beauty, wisdom, courage, virtue, all
That happiness and prime can happy call.
3798
Compare her face with some that I shall show,
And it will make thee think thy swan a crow.
3799

Shaks.: All's Well. Act il. Sc. 1

Shaks.: Rom. and Jul. Act i. sc. 2

Shaks.: Rom. and Jul. Act i. Sc. 2.

One fairer than my love! the all-seeing sun
Ne'er saw her match, since first the world begun.
3800
To those who know thee not, no words can paint!
And those who know thee, know all words are faint!
3801
Hannah More: Sensibility. Line 247.

Nature, in her productions slow, aspires,
By just degrees to reach perfection's height.

3802 PERJURY

see Oaths.

Somerville: Chase. Bk. i. Line 32.

At lovers' perjuries,

They say, Jove laughs.

Shaks.: Rom. and Jul. Act ii. Sc. 2.

3803 And hast thou sworn on every slight pretence, Till perjuries are common as bad pence, While thousands, careless of the damning sin, Kiss the book's outside, who ne'er look within? 3804

Couper: Expostulation. Line 388

PERSEVERANCE-see Endurance, Industry.
Perseverance, dear my lord,
Keeps honor bright. To have done, is to hang
Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail
In monumental mockery.

3805

Shaks.: Troil. and Cress. Act iii. Sc. 3.

Attempt the end, and never stand to doubt; Nothing's so hard, but search will find it out. 3806

Herrick: Aph. Seek an1 Find The man who consecrates his hours

By vig'rous effort, and an honest aim,

At once he draws the sting of life and death;
He walks with nature; and her paths are peace.

3807

Young: Night Thoughts. Night ii. Line 18

Pay goodly heed, all ye who read,
And beware of saying, I can't,

'Tis a cowardly word, and apt to lead
To idleness, folly, and want.

3808

PERSUASION -see Eloquence.

Eliza Cook: Try Again

Yet hold it more humane, more heav'nly, first,
By winning words, to conquer willing hearts,
And make persuasion do the work of fear.

3809

PETITIONS.

Milton: Par. Regained. Bk. i. Line 221

When maidens sue

Men give like gods; but when they weep and kneel,
All their petitions are as freely theirs,
As they themselves would owe them.

3810

Shaks.: M. for M. Act i. Sc. 5

Petitions not sweetened

With gold, are but unsavory; oft refused;
Or, if received, are pocketed, not read.

3811

Massinger: Emperor of the East. Act i. Sc. 2

PHILOSOPHERS, PHILOSOPHY

see Knowledge.

I pray thee, peace; I will be flesh and blood!
For there was never yet philosopher
That could endure the tooth-ache patiently;
However they have writ the style of gods,
And made a push at chance and sufferance.
3812

Shaks.: Much Ado. Act v. Sc. 1.

How charming is divine Philosophy!
Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose,
But musical as is Apollo's lute,

And a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets,
Where no crude surfeit reigns.

3813

Milton: Comus. Line 476.

Yet great philosophers delight to stretch

Their talents most at things beyond their reach,

And proudly think t' unriddle every cause,

That nature uses, by their own bye-laws.

3814 Butler: Sat. Upon Abuse of H. Learning. Line 113

Besides, he was a shrewd Philosopher,

And had read every text and gloss over.
Whate'er the crabbed'st author saith

He understood b' implicit faith:

Whatever sceptic could inquire for;
For ev'ry why he had a wherefore.

3815

Butler: Hudibras. Pt. i. Canto i. Line 127

In lazy apathy let stoics boast

Their virtue fix'd; 'tis fix'd as in a frost,
Contracted all, retiring to the breast;
But strength of mind is exercise, not rest;
The rising tempest puts in act the soul,
Parts it may ravage, but preserves the whole.
3816

Pope: Essay on Man. Epis. ii. Line 101

Tutored by thee, hence Poetry exalts
Her voice to ages; and informs the page
With music, image, sentiment, and thought,
Never to die! the treasure of mankind!
Their highest honor, and their truest joy!
Without thee, what were unenlighten'd Man?
3817

Thomson: Seasons. Summer. Line 1157.
Much learned dust

Involves the combatants, each claiming truth,
And truth disclaiming both. And thus they spend
The little wick of life's poor shallow lamp,
In playing tricks with nature, giving laws
To distant worlds, and trifling in their own.
3818

Cowper: Task. Bk. iii. Line 161.

Divine Philosophy! by whose pure light
We first distinguish, then pursue the right;
Thy power the breast from every error frees,
And weeds out all its vices by degrees.

3819

Gifford's Juvenal. Satire xiii. Line 254.
Sublime Philosophy!

Thou art the patriarch's ladder, reaching heaven,
And bright with beckoning angels; but, alas!
We see thee, like the patriarch, but in dreams,
By the first step, dull slumbering on the earth.
3820

PHRENOLOGY.

Bulwer-Lytton: Richelieu. Act iii. Sc. 1.

"Tis strange how like a very dunce,

Man with his bumps upon his sconce,

Has lived so long, and yet no knowledge he
Has had, till lately, of phrenology

A science that by simple dint of
Head-combing he should find a hint of,
When scratching o'er those little pole-hills
The faculties throw up like mole-hills.
3821

Throw physic to the dogs, I'll none of it.

Hood: Craniology

3822

Shaks.: Macbeth. Act v. Sc. 3

I do remember an apothecary,

And hereabouts he dwells, - whom late I noted
In tatter'd weeds, with overwhelming brows,
Culling of simples; meagre were his looks,
Sharp misery had worn him to the bones.

3823

Shaks.: Rom. and Jul. Act v. Sc. 1

A wise physician, skill'd our wounds to heal,
Is more than armies to the public weal.

3824
This is the way physicians mend or end us,
Secundum artem : — but although we sneer
In health-when ill, we call them to attend us,
Without the least propensity to jeer.

Pope: Iliad. Bk. xi. Line 636

3825

Byron: Don Juan. Canto x. St. 42

You behold in me

Only a travelling physician;

One of the few who have a mission

To cure incurable diseases,

Or those that are called so.

3826

Longfellow: Christus. Golden Legend. Pt. i.

Longfellow: Poetic Aphorisms,

Joy, and Temperance, and Repose,
Slam the door on the doctor's nose.

3827

PIETY-see Devotion, Religion.
Why should not piety be made,
As well as equity, a trade,
And men get money by devotion,
As well as making of a motion;
B' allowed to pray upon conditions,
As well as suitors in petitions;
And in a congregation pray,
No less than Chancery, for pay?
3828

Butler: Misc. Thoughts. Line 295.

Scott: Lady of the Lake. Canto ii. St. 22.

Some feelings are to mortals given,
With less of earth in them than heaven.

3829

PIGMIES.

Pigmies are pigmies still, though perched on Alps,
And pyramids are pyramids in vales.

PIN.

3830

Young: Night Thoughts. Night vi. Line 309

A pin lies there,

A pin a day will fetch a groat a year.

3831

King: Art of Cookery.