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His modesty might be secured from pressure by the concealing of him to be author.

Id. The genuine price of lands in England would be twenty years' purchase, were it not for accidental pressure under which it labours. Child on Trade. Neither the celestial matter of the vortices, nor the air, nor water, are pressitant in their proper places. More. Chymists I might press with arguments, drawn from some of the eminentest writers of their sect.

Boyle. If there be fair proofs on the one side, and none at all on the other, and if the most pressing difficulties be on that side on which there are no proofs, this is sufficient to render one opinion very credible, and the other incredible. Tillotson.

I was prest by his majesty's commands, to assist at the treaty. Temple's Miscellanies. Their morning milk the peasants press at night, Their evening milk before the rising light. Dryden. He gapes; and straight

Id.

With hunger prest, devours the pleasing bait.
He pressed a letter upon me, within this hour, to
deliver to you.
Id. Spanish Fryar.
She took her son, and press'd
The illustrious infant to her fragrant breast.

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She is always drawn in a posture of walking, it being as natural for Hope to press forward to her proper objects as for Fear to fly from them. Id.

If light consisted only in pression, propagated without actual motion, it would not be able to agitate and heat the bodies which refract and reflect it; if it consisted in motion propagated to all distances in an instant, it would require an infinite force every moment, in every shining particle, to generate that motion and if it consisted in pression or motion, propagated either in an instant or in time, it would bend into the shadow.

Newton's Opticks.

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Those who negotiated took care to make demands impossible to be complied with; and therefore might securely press every article, as if they were in earnest. Swift.

You were pressed for the sea-service, and got off with much a-do. Id. Of the stuffs I give the profits to dyers and pressers.

Young.

Id. While Mist and Wilkins rise in weekly might, Make presses groan, lead senators to fight. An Englishman fears contempt more than death; he often flies to death as a refuge from its pressure, and dies when he fancies the world has ceased to esteem him. Goldsmith.

This treatise he completed but did not publish; for that poverty which in our day drives authors as hastily in such numbers to the press, in the time of Ascham, I believe, debarred them from it. Johnson.

If, by the liberty of the press, we understand merely the liberty of discussing the propriety of public measures and political opinions, let us have so much of it as you please; but if it means the liberty of affronting, calumniating, and defaming one another, I, for my part, own myself willing to part with my share of it whenever our legislators shall please to alter the law. Franklin.

PRESS, in the mechanic arts, is a machine made of iron or wood, serving to squeeze or compress any body very close. The ordinary presses consist of six members, or pieces; viz. two fat smooth planks, between which the things to be pressed are laid; two screws, or worms, fastened to the lower plank, and passing through two holes in the upper; and two nuts, in form of an S, serving to drive the upper plank, which is moveable, against the lower, which is stable, and without motion. Presses for expressing liquors are of various kinds; some in most respects the same with the common presses, excepting that the under plank is perforated with a great number of holes, to let the juice expressed run through into the tub, or receiver, underneath.

PRESS, CUTTING, or BOOK-BINDER'S CUTTINGPRESS, is a machine used equally by bookbinders, stationers, and pasteboard makers; consisting of two large pieces of wood, in form of cheeks, connected by two strong wooden screws; which, being turned by an iron bar, draw together, or set asunder, the cheeks, as much as is necessary for the putting in the books or paper to be cut. The cheeks are placed lengthwise on a wooden stand, in the form of a chest, into which the cuttings fall. The cheeks are two pieces of wood, of the same length with the

screws, serving to direct the cheeks, and prevent their opening unequally. Upon the cheeks the plough moves, to which the cutting knife is fastened by a screw. The plough consists of several parts; a wooden screw or worm, catching within the nuts of the two feet that sustain it on the cheeks, brings the knife to the book or paper, which is fastened in the press between two boards. This screw, which is pretty long, has two directories, which resemble those of the screws of the press. To make the plough slide square and even on the cheeks, so that the knife may make an equal paring, that foot of the plough where the knife is not fixed slides in a kind of groove, fastened along one of the cheeks. Lastly, the knife is a piece of steel, six or seven inches long, flat, thin, and sharp, terminating at one end in a point, like that of a sword, and at the other in a square form, which serves to fasten it to the plough. See BOOK-BINDING. As the long knives used by us in the cutting of books or papers are apt to jump in the cutting thick books, the Dutch are said to use circular knives, with an edge all round; which not only cut more steadily, but last longer without grinding. PRESSING, in the manufactures, is applied to cloth, stuff, &c., to render it smooth and glossy. There are two methods of pressing, viz. cold and hot. Cold-pressing is thus performed:-After the stuff has been scoured, fulled, and shorn, it is folded square in equal plaits, and a skin of vellum or pasteboard put between each plait. Over the whole is laid a square wooden plank, and so put into the press, which is screwed down tight by means of a lever. After it has lain a sufficient time in the press they take it out, removing the pasteboards, and lay it up to keep. Some only lay the stuff on a firm table, after plaiting and pasteboarding, cover the whole with a wooden plank, and load it with a proper weight. Hotpressing is performed thus :-When the stuff has received the above preparations it is sprinkled a little with water, sometimes gum-water: then plaited equally, and between each two plaits are put leaves of pasteboard, and between every sixth and seventh plait, as well as over the whole, an iron or brass plate well heated in a kind of furnace. This done, it is laid upon the press, and forcibly screwed down. Under this press are laid five, six, &c., pieces at the same time, all furnished with their pasteboards and iron plates. When the plates are well cooled the stuffs are taken out, and stitched a little together to keep them in the plaits. This manner of pressing was only invented to cover the defects of the stuffs; and, accordingly, it has been frequently prohibited.

PRESTEIGN, a market town of Radnorshire, 149 miles W. N. W. of London, in the direct road to Aberystwith. It is a neat well-built town, with clean and regular streets, and is the residence of many genteel families. It is seated on a gravelly soil on the banks of the Lug, at the head of a very fertile vale: the mountains on the west and north-west forming a kind of amphitheatre round it. The name in Welsh is SlanAndras, from the church, which is dedicated to St Andrew. The town is divided into four wards, which have each separate jurisdictions, VOL. XVIII.

officers, levies, &c. It is a borough by prescription, and is governed by a bailiff, annually elected and sworn in by a steward appointed by the crown. The living a rectory and vicarage united, worth from £500 to £600 a year: the parish lying in two counties. It has an excellent free school, well endowed. The county hall, gaol, bridewell, and correction-house, are kept in it. It has a market on Saturday, and two fairs. Presteign is thirty miles W. N. W. of Worcester.

PRESTER, a meteor consisting of an exhalation thrown from the clouds downwards with such violence that it is set on fire by the collision. The word is Greek, Tonorno, the name of a kind of serpent; called also dipsas, to which this meteor is supposed to bear a resemblance. The prester differs from the thunderbolt in the manner of its inflammation, and in its burning and breaking every thing it touches with greater violence.

PRESTER JOHN, an appellation formerly given to an emperor of the Tartars, who was overcome by Jenghiz Khan A. D. 1201.

PRESTIMONY, in canon law, is derived a præstatione quotidiana; and is, by some, defined to be a kind of benefice, served by a single priest. Others say it is the incumbency of a chapel without any title or collation; such as are most of those in castles, where prayers or masses are said, and which are mere endowed oratories. Whence the term is also applied, in the Romish church, to certain perpetual offices bestowed on canons, religious, or others, for the saying of masses, by way of augmentation of their livings. Du Moulin calls it a profane benefice, which however, has a perpetual title, and an ecclesiastical office, with certain revenues attached to it; which the incumbent is allowed to sell, and which may be possessed without tonsure; such as the lay church-wardens of Notre Dame. He adds that, in propriety, the canonries of chapels are benefices of this nature.

PRESTO, n. s. Ital. presto; Lat. presto. Quick; at once. A word used by those that show legerdemain.

Swift.

Presto! begone! 'tis here again; There's every piece as big as ten. PRESTON (Thomas), LL. D., a dramatic writer and actor who flourished in the beginning of queen Elizabeth's reign. He was first admitted M. A. and fellow of King's College, Cambridge, and afterwards created LL. D. and elected master of Trinity Hall. In 1564, when the queen was entertained at Cambridge, Preston acted so well in the tragedy of Dido, a Latin piece written by John Ritwise, another fellow of the same college, that queen Elizabeth settled a pension of twenty pounds a year on him; a circumstance which Shakspeare is supposed to allude to, in his Midsummer Night's dream, Act 4th. He likewise attended and exhibited at Oxford, on the 6th of September 1566, with other eight Cantabrigians, when the queen visited that university. He also wrote a dramatic piece, in the ancient metre, entitled Cambyses King of Persia.

PRESTON, a borough and market town of England, in Lancashire, seated on the Ribble, over which there is a handsome stone bridge. The

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town is well built, and lighted with gas; having a handsome and convenient town hall. The church is spacious and handsome: there are two Roman Catholic chapels, and meeting-houses for all classes of dissenters. The new prison, built according to the plan of John Howard, is a large and commodious building. Here is also a dispensary, a free grammar school, and several public charity schools. It is governed by a mayor, recorder, aldermen, four subaldermen, seventeen common-council-men, and a town clerk. It returns two members to parliament, the right of election being in the inhabitants at large, being the only place in England where the members are returned by universal suffrage. The returning officers are the mayor and two bailiffs. The river here is navigable for small vessels only; and by canal navigation it has communication with most of the principal rivers in England. The cotton manufactories are carried on here extensively. Here is held a court of Chancery, and other offices of justice for the county palatine of Lancaster. It is noted for the defeat of the Scotch royalists under the duke of Hamilton in the reign of Charles I., as well as for that of the rebels in 1715, when they were all made prisoners, and sent up to London. It has a good market-place, large open streets, and markets on Wednesday and Friday. From Preston a Roman road, still distinctly visible in places, conducts to Ribchester, once a military station of that people. Its original designation has been a matter of much contention among antiquaries. Camden supposes it to have been the Coccium of Antoninus, and the Rigodunum of Ptolemy. Horsley was of the same opinion as to Coccium, but inclined to fix Rigodunum at Warrington. Mr. Whitaker, the historian of Manchester, contended that it was Rerigonium of Richard of Cirencester; but Dr. Whitaker, who last investigated the subject, appears to have clearly identified it with Coccium; and assigns its original establishment to Agricola. From the boldness and extent of its ramparts, and also from the number of altars, inscribed stones, earthen vessels, plates of copper, coins, and other relics found here, Ribchester is presumed to have been a station of more than ordinary magnitude and importance. That the Ribble was anciently navigable as high as this place is proved by the fact of many anchors having been dug up in the vicinity, as well as the hull of a ship larger than any that could now be floated above Preston. Preston lies twenty-one miles south of Lancaster, and 216 N. N. W. of London.

PRESTON, a town of Scotland, in Haddingtonshire, in the parish of Preston-Pans, seven miles west of Haddington; formerly noted for its fair, held on the second Thursday of October, called St. Jerome's fair, at which the travelling chapmen made their annual election.

PRESTON-PANS, a parish of Scotland, in East Lothian, so named from the above town and the salt-pans near it, on the east coast of the frith of Forth. The soil is loam, partly on clay and partly on a sandy bottom; and produces good crops of all the usual grain. There are ten saltpans, of which six are wrought. The average quantity of salt made annually is 10,750 bushels

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and four gallons. The total quantity delivered in five years, from 1787 to 1792, was 417,354 bushels five gallons.

PRESTON-PANS, a town in the above parish, built after the erection of the salt-pans, and named from them. It is a quarter of a mile north of Preston. It is a burgh of barony, and a port of the custom-house, eight miles east of Edinburgh, and nine and three-quarters north-west of Haddington. It received its charter of erection in 1617, by which Preston is included in its privileges. It is noted for its extensive manufactures particularly of salt, stone, and earthen-ware, and brick and tile. A manufacture of oil of vitriol, aqua-fortis, and spirit of salt is also carried on to a great extent; and the same company manufactures great quantities of Glauber's salts. On the east of the enclosures of Preston-Pans, on the 21st of September 1745, the forces under prince Charles Stuart obtained a victory over the royal forces under Sir John Cope. See GREAT BRITAIN.

PRESUME', v. n.
PRESUMABLY, adv.
PRESU'MER, n. S.
PRESUMPTION,
PRESUMPTIVE, adj.
PRESUMPTU'Ous,
PRESUMPTUOUSLY, adv.
PRESUMPTUOUSNESS, n. s.

Fr. presumer; Lat. præsumo. To suppose; assume; believe or affirm without proof; intrude; attempt vainly, or arrogantly; taking on, upon, and of before the object (the last improperly): presumably is without examination: presumer and presumption follow these senses: presumptive is, taken by supposition; confident; arrogant; also in law applied to the person who, if the ancestor should die immediately, would be his heir, but whose right of inheritance may be defeated by some nearer heir being born: presumptuous is arrogant; confident; irreverent toward sacred things: the adverb and noun substantive corresponding.

Keep back thy servant from presumptuous sins.

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We commonly take shape and colour for so presumptive ideas of several species, that, in a good picture, we readily say this is a lion, and that a rose. Locke.

He that would not deceive himself, ought to build his hypothesis on matter of fact, and not presume on matter of fact, because of his hypothesis. Id. Experience supplants the use of conjecture in the point; we do not only presume it may be so, but actually find it is so.

Government of the Tongue. Do you, who study nature's works, decide, Whilst I the dark mysterious cause admire ; Nor into what the gods conceal, presumptuously enquire. Addison's Remarks on Italy. Though men in general believed a future state, yet they had but confused presumptions of the nature and condition of it. Rogers.

Luther presumes upon the gift of continency.

Atterbury. Canst thou love Presumptuous Crete, that boasts the tomb of Jove? Pope. Those at home held their immoderate engrossments of power by no other tenure than their own presumption upon the necessity of affairs. Swift.

Mark these, she says; these, summoned from afar, Begin their march to meet thee at the bar ; There find a judge, inexorably just,

And perish there, as all presumption must. Cowper.

The same estate may be frequently devested by the subsequent birth of nearer presumptive heirs, before it fixes upon an heir apparent. As if an estate is given to an only child, who dies; it may descend to an aunt, who may be stripped of it by an afterborn uncle; on whom a subsequent sister may enter, and who will again be deprived of the estate by the birth of a brother, the heir apparent.

Judge Christian. PRESUPPOSE', v. a. and suppose. To suppose as previous; imply Fr. presupposer, præ

as antecedent.

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All things necessary to be known that we may be saved, but known with presupposal of knowledge concerning certain principles, whereof it receiveth us already persuaded.

Id.

PRESURMISE', n. s. Pre and surmise. Surmise previously formed.

It was your presurmise,
That, in the dole of blows, your son might drop.
Shakspeare.
Fr. pretendre;
Latin, prætendo.
Used by Dryden
literally for to hold
out; to simulate;

PRETEND' v. a. & v. n. '
PRETENCE, n.s.
PRETEN'DER,
PRETEND'INGLY,
PRETEN'SION, n. s.

claim, taking to before the object: as a verb neuter, to put in a claim, true or false; presume an ability to a thing; profess presumptuously: a pretender is one who claims, and more commonly one who cannot prove or sustain a right: pretendingly is presumptuously; arrogantly: pretension, claim, false or true; fictitious appear

ance.

With flying speed and seeming great pretence Came running in a messenger. Spenser. In the great hand of God I stand, and thence Against the undivulged pretence I fight Of treas'nous malice. Shakspeare. Macbeth. This was but an invention and pretension given out by the Spaniards. Bacon. 'Tis their interest to guard themselves from those riotous effects of pretended zeal, nor is it less their duty. Decay of Piety. But if to unjust things thou dost pretend, Ere they begin let thy pretensions end. Denham. So strong his appetite was to those executions he had been accustomed to in Ireland, without any kind of commission or pretence of authority.

Spirits on our just pretences armed
Fell with us.

Clarendon.

This let him know, Lest wilfully transgressing he pretend Surprisal.

Milton.

Id.

Warn all creatures from thee Henceforth; lest that too heavenly form, pretended To hellish falsehood, snare them.

Id.

There is no security which men can yield compa rable to that of an oath; the obligation whereof nc man wilfully can infringe, without renouncing the fear of God, and any pretence to his favour.

Barrow.

Of the ground of redness in this sea are we not fully satisfied? For there is another red sea whose name we pretend not to make out from these principles. Browne.

He so much abhorred artifice and cunning, that he had prejudice to all concealments and pretensions.

Fell. This pretence against religion will not only be baffled, but we shall gain a new argument to persuade men over. Tillotson.

Lucagus, to lash his horses, bends Prone to the wheels, and his left foot pretends. Dryden.

Let not Trojans, with a feigned pretence Of proffered peace, delude the Latian prince. Id. The prize was disputed only till you were seen; now all pretenders have withdrawn their claims. Id. Men indulged those opinions and practices that favour their pretensions. L'Estrange. Primogeniture cannot have any pretence to a right of solely inheriting property or power. Locke. Despise not these few ensuing pages; for never was any thing of this pretence more ingenuously imparted. Evelyn. Whatever victories the several pretenders to the empire obtained over one another, they are recorded

on coins without the least reflection.

Addison.

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To just contempt ye vain pretenders fall, The people's fable and the scorn of all. Id. In those countries that pretend to freedom, princes are subject to those laws which their people have Swift.

chosen.

The numerous pretenders to places would never have been kept in order, if expectation had been cut off. Id.

Pretenders to philosophy or good sense grow fond of this sort of learning. Watts. PRETERITION, n. s. Į Fr. preterition; PRETERITNESS. Lat preteritus. The act of going past: the state of being past.

Had not he been a wise disciple, that should have envied the great favour done to Judas, and have stomached his own preterition? So foolish are they, who, measuring God's affection by temporal benefits, are ready to applaud prospering wickedness; and to grudge outward blessings to them which are incapable of any better. Bp. Hall.

We cannot conceive a preteritness still backwards, in infinitum, that never was present, as we can an endless futurity that never will be present; so that though one is potentially infinite, yet nevertheless the other is positively finite; and this reasoning doth not at all affect the eternal existence of the adorable di

vinity, in whose invariable nature there is no past nor future. Bentley's Sermons.

PRETERITION, OF PRETERMISSION, in rhetoric, a figure whereby, in pretending to pass over a thing untouched, we make a summary mention thereof. I will not say he is valiant, he is learned, he is just, &c.

PRETERLAPSED, adj. Lat. præterlapsus. Past and gone.

We look with a superstitious reverence upon the accounts of preterlapsed ages. Glanville's Scepsis. Never was there so much of either, in any preterlapsed age, as in this.

Walker.

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PRETERPERFECT, adj. Lat. præteritum perfectum. A grammatical term applied to the tense which denotes time absolutely past.

The same natural aversion to loquacity has of late made a considerable alteration in our language, by closing in one syllable the termination of our preterperfect tense, as drown'd, walk'd, for drowned, walked. Addison's Spectator. PRETEXT, n. s. Fr. pretexte; Lat. prætertus. Pretence; false appearance, or allegation. My pretext to strike at him admits

A good construction. Shakspeare. Coriolanus. He made pretext, that I should only go And helpe convey his freight; but thought not so. Chapman.

I shall not say with how much or how little pretext of reason they managed those disputes.

Decay of Piety.

Under this pretext, the means he sought To ruin such whose might did much exceed His power to wrong. Daniel's Civil War. As chymists gold from brass by fire would draw, Pretexts are into treason forged by law. Denham. They suck the blood of those they depend upon, under a pretext of service and kindness.

L'Estrange.

PRETEXTA TOGA. See PRÆTEXTA: PRETI (Chevalier Matthias), a celebrated Italian painter, born at Calabria in 1613. His picture of the triumph of Osiris, the Egyptian conqueror, obtained the prize from the Academy of St. Luke at Rome. He died in 1699.

PRETOR, n. s. Fr. preteur; Lat. prætor. PRETORIAN, adj. The Roman judge; sometimes taken for a mayor: judicial.

Good Cinna, take this paper;
And look you lay it in the pretor's chair.

Shakspeare. The chancery had the pretorian power for equity; the star-chamber had the censorian power for offences.

Bacon.

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