test or adventure; value; price: to rate; value; esteem: prizer is he who values: prize-fighter, he who publicly fights for hire or reward.

A goodly price that I was prized at of them.

Zechariah xi. 13. The king of Scots she did send to France, To fill king Edward's fame with prisoner kings, And make his chronicle as rich with prize, As is the ouzy bottom of the sea With sunken wreck. Shakspeare. Henry V. Life I prize not a straw; but for mine honour Which I would free.

Shakspeare.

They are not indeed suffered to dispute with us the proud prizes of arts and sciences, of learning and elegance, in which I have much suspicion they would often prove our superiours.

Law.

So strong the zeal to immortalize himself Beats in the breast of man, that e'en a few, Few transient years, won from the' abyss abhorred Of blank oblivion, seem a glorious prize, And even to a clown.

Cowper. PRIZE [prise, French, i. e. taken], in maritime affairs, a vessel taken at sea from the enemies of a state, or from pirates; and that either by a man of war, or privateer, &c, having a commission for that purpose. Vessels are looked on as prizes if they fight under any other standard than that of the state from which they have their commission; if they have no charter party, invoice, or bill of lading aboard; if laden with effects belonging to the king's enemies, or with contraband goods. In ships of war the prizes are to be divided among the officers, seamen, &c., as his majesty shall appoint by proclamation; but, among privateers, the division is according to the agreement between the owners. By stat. 13 Geo. II. c. 4, judges and officers failing of their duty in respect to the condemnation of prizes, forfeit £500 with full costs of suit; one moiety to the king, and the other to the informer. PRO. Lat. pro. For; in defence of; pro and con, for pro and contra, for and against.

And pro and con by turns they took. Prior. PROA, flying, in navigation, a vessel used in the South Seas, so named because, with a brisk trade wind, it sails nearly twenty miles an hour. In the construction of the proa, the head and stern are exactly alike, but the sides are very different; the side intended to be always the leeside being flat; and the windward side made rounding, in the manner of other vessels; and to prevent her oversetting, which from her small breadth, and the straight run of her leeward side, would without this precaution infallibly happen, there is a frame laid out to her from windward, to the end of which is fastened a log, fashioned into the shape of a small boat, and made hollow. The weight of the frame is intended to balance the proa, and the small boat is by its buoyancy (as it is always in the water) to prevent her oversetting to windward; and this frame is usually called an outrigger. The body of the vessel is made of two pieces joined endwise, and sewed together with bark, for there is no iron used about her; she is about two inches thick at the bottom, which at the gunwale is reduced to less than one. The sail is made of matting, and the mast, yard, boom, and outriggers, are all made of bamboo.

Their rigging consists of two stays that set up at the ends of the proa, and four shrouds that set up at the four corners of the frame. The sail is shaped like a settee-sail; and the lower end of the yard is confined forward in a shoe-block. In going about they keep her way, so that the stern becomes the head; and, to shift the sail, the yard is raised, and the lower end taken along the gunwale, and fixed in a shoe-block as before; the boom is shifted at the same, by slackening the sheet, and peaking the boom up along the mast; then, by hauling upon another sheet, the end of the boom is brought to the place where the lower yard-arm was before, and is hauled aft at the other end. They are steered by paddles at each end.

Though moral certainty be sometimes taken for a high degree of probability, which can only produce a doubtful assent; yet it is also frequently used for a firm assent to a thing upon such grounds as fully satisfy a prudent man. Tillotson.

If you like not my poem, the fault may possibly be in my writing; but more probably 'tis in your morals, which cannot bear the truth of it. Dryden. Distinguish betwixt what may possibly, and what will probably, be done. L'Estrange's Fables.

Probability is the appearance of the agreement or disagreement of two ideas, by the intervention of proofs, whose connection is not constant; but appears for the most part to be so. Locke.

South.

If a truth be certain, and thwart interest, it will quickly fetch it down to but a probability; nay, if it does not carry with it an impregnable evidence, it will go near to debase it to a downright falsity. They assented to things that were neither evident nor certain, but only probable; for they conversed, they merchandized, upon a probable persuasion of the. honesty and truth of those whom they corresponded with.

Id.

Which tempers, if they were duly improved by proper studies, and sober methods of education, would in all probability carry them to greater heights of piety than are to be found amongst the generality

of men.

Law. PROBAT, or PROBATE, of a will or testament, in law, is the exhibiting and proving of last wills and testaments before the ecclesiastical judge delegated by the bishop, who is ordinary of the place where the party died. PROBATION, n. s. Fr. probation; Lat. PROBATIONARY, adj. probatio, from Lat. proPROBATIONER, n. s. bo. Proof; testimony; PROBATIONERSHIP, act or time of proving, PROBATORY, adj. or of trial: probationary

and probatory mean serving for trial: probationer, one who is on his trial; hence, a novice: probationership, his state or time of trial; noviciate. Of the truth herein,

This present object made probation.
Shakspeare. Hamlet.

In the practical part of knowledge, much will be left to experience and probation, whereunto indication cannot so fully reach. Bacon's Natural History.

This root of bitterness was but a probationer in the soil; and, though it set forth some offsets to preserve its kind, yet Satan was fain to cherish them.

Decay of Piety. Job's afflictions were no vindicatory punishments, but probatory chastisements to make trial of his graces. Bramhall.

The kinds of probation for several things being as much disproportioned as the objects of the several senses are to one another.

Wilkins.

Hear a mortal muse thy praise rehearse, In no ignoble verse;

But such as thy own verse did practise here, When thy first fruits of poesy were given, To make thyself a welcome inmate there; While yet a young probationer,

And candidate of heaven.

Dryden.

When these principles, what is, is, and it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be, are made use of in the probation of propositions, wherein are words standing for complex ideas, as man or horse, there they make men receive and retain falsehood for manifest truth. Locke.

He has afforded us only the twilight of probability, suitable to that state of mediocrity and probationership he has been pleased to place us in here, wherein to check our over-confidence.

Id.

At the end of the world, when the state of our trial and probation shall be finished, it will be a proper season for the distribution of publick justice.

Nelson.

I suffer many things as an author militant, whereof, in your days of probation, you have been a sharer. Pope to Swift. Build a thousand churches, where these probationers may read their wall lectures. Swift. PROBATION, in the universities, is the examination and trial of a student who is about to take his degrees.

PROBATION, in the monastic sense, signifies the year of a noviciate, which a religieux must pass in a convent to prove his virtue and vocation, and whether he can bear the severities of the rule.

PROBATIONER, in the church of Scotland, a student in divinity, who, bringing a certificate from a professor in a university of his good morals, and his having performed his exercises to approbation, is admitted to undergo several trials; and, upon his acquitting himself properly in these, receives a license to preach.

PROBATUM EST. Lat. probatum est. A phrase added to the end of a receipt, signifying it is tried or proved.

Vain the concern that you express,
That uncalled Alard will possess

Your house and coach both day and night,
And that Macbeth was haunted less
By Banquo's restless sprite :
Lend him but fifty louis d'or,
And

Prior.

you shall never see him more; Take my advice, probatum est. Why do the gods indulge our store, But to secure our rest? PROBE, n. s. Lat. probo. A slender PROBE-SCISSORS. wire by which surgeons search the depth of wounds: probe-scissors, are scissors attached to a probe.

A round white stone was lodged, which was so fastened in that part, that the physician with his probe could not stir it.

Fell.

He'd raise a blush where secret vice he found; And tickle while he gently probed the wound.

Dryden. Nothing can be more painful, than to probe and search a purulent old sore to the bottom. South. I made search with a probe. Wiseman's Surgery. The sinus was snipt up with probe-scissors.

Wiseman.

It is a question problematical and dubious, whether the observation of the sabbath was imposed upon Adam, and his posterity in paradise? White. Deeming that abundantly confirmed to advance it above a disputable problem, I proceed to the next proposition. Hammond. Although in general one understood colours, yet were it not an easy problem to resolve, why grass is green?

Browne.

I promised no better arguments than might be expected in a point problematical. Boyle.

This problem let philosophers resolve, What makes the globe from West to East revolve?' Blackmore.

Diligent enquiries into remote and problematical guilt, leave a gate wide open to the whole tribe of ¡nformers. Swift.

PROBLEM, in geometry, is a proposition, wherein some operation or construction is required; as to divide a line or angle, erect or let fall perpendiculars, &c. See GEOMETRY.

PROBLEM, in logic, is a proposition that neither appears absolutely true nor false; and consequently may be asserted either in the affirmative or negative.

PROBOS CIS, n. s. Latin proboscis. A Snout; particularly the trunk of an elephant. The elephant wreathed, to make them sport, His lithe proboscis.

Milton.

PROBUS (Marcus Aurelius), from the son of a gardener, became, by his great valor as a soldier, and his eminent virtues, emperor of Rome, to which dignity he was raised by the army, After having subdued the barbarous nations that had made incursions into different parts of the empire, and governed with great wisdom and clemency, he was massacred in the seventh year of his reign, by some soldiers weary of the public works at which he made them labor, in 282. See ROME.

He that seeketh victory over his nature, let him not set himself too great nor too small tasks; for the first will make him dejected by often failing; and the second will make him a small proceeder, though by often prevailings. Id.

These things, when they proceed not, they go backBen Jonson's Catiline.

ward.

Adam Proceeded thus to ask his heavenly guest.

Milton.

ld.

Id.

To judgment he proceeded on the accused. O Adam, one Almighty is, from whom All things proceed, and up to him return. Although the distinction of these several procedures of the soul do not always appear distinct, especially in sudden actions, yet in actions of weight all these have their distinct order and procedure.

Hale's Origin of Mankind. Instead of a ship to levy upon his county such a what manner he should proceed against such as resum of money for his majesty's use, with direction in fused. Clarendon.

Then to the prelude of a war proceeds; His horns, yet sore, he tries against a tree. Dryden. All this proceeded not from any want of knowledge.

Id.

PROCATARCTICK, adj. Gr. πрокатарк TUOC. Forerunning; remotely antecedent. PROCATARʼXIS, n. s. An antecedent or preexistent cause.

causes.

cause.

The physician enquires into the procatarctick Harvey. Procatarris is the pre-existent cause of a disease, which co-operates with others that are subsequent, whether internal or external; as anger or heat of climate, which brings such an ill disposition of the juices, as occasions a fever: the ill disposition being the immediate cause, and the bad air the procatarctick Quincy. ‚PROCEED', v. n. & n. s.` Fr. proceder; PROCEED'ER, n. S. Lat. proceda. To PROCEED'ING, pass from one PROCEDURE. thing or place to another; advance; go forth in form or state; issue; be propagated; transact; carry on an affair methodically; prosecute a legal suit; take effect; have its course: a proceeder is, he who

Id.

Clear the justice of God's proceedings, it seems reasonable there should be a future judgment for a suitable distribution of rewards and punishments.

Nelson.

A cheek and lip—but why proceed?
I loved her then-I love her still;
And such as I am love indeed

In fierce extremes-in good and ill. Byron. PROCELEUSMATICUS, in the ancient poetry, a foot consisting of four short syllables, or two pyrrhics, as homĭnībŭs.

PROCELLARIA, in ornithology, a genus of birds, belonging to the order of anseres. The beak is somewhat compressed, and without teeth; the mandibles are equal, the superior one being crooked at the point; the feet are palmated, the hind claw being sessile, without any toe. Latham enumerates twenty-four species, chiefly distinguished by their colors. The most remarkable are the following:

1. P. æquinoctialis. It is nearly of the size of a raven; its color is a deep sooty brown or blackish; on the chin there is a small patch of white running down a little on each side from the lower mandible: the beak is of yellowish white.

2. P. cinerea, the petrel. The size of this bird is rather superior to that of the common gull the bill very strong, much hooked at the end, and of a yellow color. The nostrils are composed of two large tubes, lodged in one sheath; the head, neck, whole under side of the body and tail are white; the back and coverts of the wings ash-colored; the quill-feathers dusky; and the legs yellowish. In lieu of a back toe, it has only a sort of spur, or sharp straight nail. These birds feed on the fat of whales, &c., and are likewise said to eat sorrel, to qualify the unctuous diet they live on. This species inhabit the isle of St. Kilda; appear there in November, and continue the whole year, except September and October; lay a large, white, and very brittle egg; and the young are hatched in the middle of June. No bird is of such use to the islanders as this; it supplies them with oil for their lamps, down for their beds, a delicacy for their tables, a balm for their wounds, and a medicine for their distempers. It is also a certain prognosticator of the change of the wind: if it comes to land, no west wind is expected for some time; and the contrary when it returns and keeps the sea. The whole genus of petrels have a peculiar faculty of spouting from their bills, to a considerable distance, a large quantity of pure oil; which they do by way of defence, into the face of any one that attempts to take them; so that they are, for the sake of this panacæa, seized by surprise, as this oil has been applied to medical purposes. Frederick Martens, who had an opportunity of seeing vast numbers of these birds at Spitzbergen, says they are very bold, and resort after the whale fishers in great flocks; and that, when a whale is taken, they light on it, and pick out large lumps of fat, even while the animal is alive; that the whales are often discovered at sea by the multitudes of them flying; and that, when one is wounded, they immediately follow its bloody track.

3. P. pelagica, the stormy petrel, is about the bulk of the house swallow: the length six inches, the extent of wings thirteen. The whole bird is black, except the coverts of the tail and vent-feathers, which are white; the bill is hooked at the

end; the nostrils tubular; the legs slender and long. It has the same faculty of spouting oil from its bill as the other species. Excepting in breeding time, they are always at sea; and are seen all over the vast Atlantic Ocean, at the greatest distance from land; often following the vessels in great flocks, to pick up any thing that falls from on board. They presage bad weather, and caution the seamen of the approach of a tempest, by collecting under the stern of the ships; they brave the utmost fury of the storm, sometimes skimming with incredible velocity along the hollows of the waves, sometimes on the summits. These birds are the cypselli of Pliny, which he places among the apods of Aristotle; not because they wanted feet, but were Kakoжoca, or had bad or useless ones; an attribute he gives to these species, on the supposition that they are almost always on the wing. In August, 1772, Pennant found them on the rocks called Macdonald's Table, off the north end of the isle of Skye ; and conjectures they breed there. They lurked under the loose stones, but their twittering noise betrayed them.

4. P. puffinus, the shear-water, is fifteen inches long, and thirty-one broad; the weight seventeen ounces; the bill is an inch and three-quarters long; nostrils tubular, but not very prominent; the head, and whole upper side of the body, wings, tail, and thighs, are of a sooty blackness; the under side from chin to tail, and inner coverts of the wings, white; the legs weak, and compressed sidewise; dusky behind, whitish before. These birds are found in the Calf of Man; and, as Mr. Ray supposes, in the Scilly Isles. They resort to the former in February; take possession of the rabbit burrows, and disappear till April. They lay one egg, white and blunt at each end; and the young are fit to be taken in the beginning of August; when great numbers are killed by the person who farms the isle; they are salted and barrelled; and, when they are boiled, are eaten with potatoes. During the day, they keep at sea fishing; and toward evening return to their young; whom they feed, by discharging the contents of their stomachs into their mouths, which by that time is turned into oil. They quit the isle about the end of August; and are dispersed over the Atlantic. This species inhabits also the Orkney Isles, where it makes its nest in holes on the earth near the shelves of the rocks and headlands; it is called there the lyre; and is much valued both as food, and for its feathers. The inhabitants salt them in August for winter provisions. They also take the old ones in March; but they are then poor, and not so well tasted as the young: they first appear in those islands in February. PROCEPTION, n. s. Lat. pro and capio. Preoccupation; act of taking something sooner than another. A word not in use.

tion.

Having so little power to offend others that I have none to preserve what is mine own from their procepKing Charles. PROCER'ITY, n. s. Lat. procerus. Tallness; height of stature.

We shall make attempts to lengthen out the human figure, and restore it to its ancient procerity.

Addison.